Troika's Strength
by Omgitskirk
Summary: A beater, a murderer, and a student. What do they have in common, nothing except they were all lucky enough to log into Sword Art Online on November 6th, 2022. Who will emerge the heroes of this world? Will the beaters beat the game or will the game beat them? But there is one thing that they know, Aincrad will be one of the largest and longest adventures they have ever seen.
1. Synthesize

November 6, 2022

-Kirito-

"Link start!" Kirito shouted into the nervegear. He had been waiting for this moment since the beta, to get into a world where he was Kirito not Kazuto. A world where his sword could take him anywhere.

-Sinon-

Shino picks up the nerve gear. This unknown world, this foreign world would shield her from her life. Shino puts it on her head and lays down. "Hopefully." She thinks. "Link start!" Shino shouts.

She see's notifications pop up one after another until it asks her about her avatar.

"Do you want your avatar to look like you?" The game asks me.

She taps the yes button reluctantly. Her avatar pops up in front of her.

"Is this avatar final?" The game asks me.

She is about to hit the yes button until she had a thought, "I could change my hair color, I have always wanted to dye my hair." Shino thinks. She taps the no button and changes hair color to blue, her favorite color.

"Name?" The games asks her.

"I am going to be different in this game not Shino I'll be, … Sinon." She thinks a she types in her name.

-Kirito-

He spawned in a immediately started to run. He had a meeting with one of his friends from the beta, Asuna. He runs straight through the town. Then turns down a backstreet and kept running until he was grabbed.

"Hey, you run like you have been here before." The stranger says. "You're beta tester right?"

"Yeah." Kirito response.

"My names Klein and I was wondering if you could show me the ropes, so you know I don't get wreck by a slime." He asks.

"I'm sorry I have somewhere to be." Kirito rejects his offer.

"I could come with you, I'm begging you." Klein says as he grabs Kirito's leg.

"... Okay, I'm Kirito by the way." Kirito sighs. "I hope Asuna is okay with it." Kirito thinks.

-Sinon-

She spawns in blown away. The world looked like real life. If she didn't know any better this could be real life. She looks up at her hair.

"It's blue." She shouts. Nobody even acknowledged that she had shouted.

Sinon looks around her waist and sees a sword. She unsheathes it and tries to point it up towards the sky but she realizes it is too heavy. "Okay enough that." she thinks while she puts the sword away. "So where's a shop I think knives will be better." She things while she walks around trying to find a shop.

She a finds shop and literally grabs the cheapest knife that she saw. With her knife she starts to journey out and find some monster to farm.

-Asuna-

"Finally my parents left." She thinks, while looking at her watch. It said it was 2:07. "NO NO I was suppose to meet him at two o'clock." I think while grabbing my nervegear from under my bed.

"I have been waiting for this day for a month now, since the beta." I think while hoping he wasn't mad.

"My parents never knew I had the nervegear or the game or even that I was in the beta." I thought while putting the nervegear on my head.

"Link Start." I spoke into the nervegear.

-Kirito, Klein, and Sinon-

"How far away were you going to meet them." Klein complains.

"Well you see the plan was it to make it so no one would be there." Kirito says as he shoots a look at Klein.

"Is she it." Klein says as he points at someone on the horizon. She was getting pummeled by a wolf.

Kirito in response starts to run and picks up a rock off the ground a throws it at the wolf killing it.

"Are you okay?" Kirito asks the girl.

The girl shakes her head. "My name is Kirito." He says as he extends out his hand.

"I'm Shi, Sinon." She says.

"And he's-" Kirito starts to say.

"Hi, I'm Klein and I'm 24 and." Klein gets out before he is interrupted.

"And getting punched." Kirito finishes as he punches Klein in the stomach.

"What was that for?" Sinon said.

"You remind me of someone, it must be nothing." Kirito says. "Hey I'm helping Klein would you like to join us?" Kirito asks.

"Does he know me in real life, does this blue hair actually conceal my identity, do I know him?" Sinon thinks.

"Is that a yes?" Kirito asks confused. Sinon nods slightly.

"Let's get going." Klein says.

They train for about an hour. Kirito teaches the both of them sword skills or for Sinon's case knife skills. They kill of boars, wolves, etc.

-All Finally-

Asuna spawn in and immediately takes off at record speed, her avatar's blue hair whipping and getting in her face as she ran. "Hope he is not mad." She thinks.

Asuna gets almost to her meeting space and she sees three people in the distance.

"Kirito!" Asuna shout as she runs to them.

"Asuna you made it." Kirito says to Asuna.

"Sorry I was late." Asuna apologizes.

"Hi I'm Klein, I'm 24 and single and … Ouch." Klein says in agony.

"And I'm 15 geez." Asuna says as she punches him.

"Klein doesn't hurt, okay!" Kirito scream reminds Klein.

"Oh yeah." Klein says.

"Hi Asuna I'm Sinon." Sinon says shyly.

"Hey Sinon." Asuna says while shaking her hand.

They spend the next hours killing off animals and monster grinding up xp, col, and item drops. They also laugh at Klein's over reactions to everything and Sinon's inability to lift her sword.

"Hey guys I'm going log off, I want to eat some food." Klein says.

"I should also get going before my parents notice I'm gone." Asuna says.

"Bye." Kirito and Sinon Say as they walk off to find some more monsters to loot.

"Um Kirito did they move the logout button?" Asuna asks.

"I can't find it either. " Klein says. Kirito opens up his menu and goes to where it was during the beta. All he sees is a blank space where the logout button should be.

Then a blue light surrounds them all and blinds them.

XXXX

Hey Everyone, This is the start of my Sao fanfic.

Feel free to pm if you have any Pointers or Ideas.

I'll try to get the next chapter out next Sunday.

Thank you all for reading and have a fantastic day!


	2. Sunder

November 6, 2022

-All-

The next thing they all know is that they are at spawn.

Then a massive hooded figure appears in the sky.

"Welcome players, I am Akihiko Kayaba and welcome to _my world_ : Sword Art Online." Kayaba announced.

"As you may have noticed the logout button is missing from the main menu." Kayaba continues to speak. "THIS IS NOT A BUG, it is a feature of Sword Art Online." Kayaba tells us.

"What no, NO, you can't do that." Asuna thinks.

"If you die In SAO then simultaneously the nervegear will emit a microwave signal that will fry your brain." Kayaba says, "This will also be the cause if someone the outside world takes the nervegear off your head, as a result 213 players have already died." He informs us.

Screams come from all over the crowd as they realize that Kayaba is serious.

"Kirito, can it…" Klein starts to ask.

"Without the safety, potentially yes." Kirito answers.

"Why would he do that?" Asuna asks.

"Now players by this time you maybe wondering why does Akihiko Kayaba, Creator of nervegear and Sword Art Online would do such a thing." Kayaba begins to speak again. "My goal was a simple one, to control a world of my own design."

"He's kidding with us." Sinon said while trying to cope with it.

"He's made his own world, he controls this world, he's the god of this world." Klein says while freaking out.

"Now there is only one way to defeat this game." Kayaba continues. "Beat the boss on floor one hundred." Kayaba informs us.

"What we didn't even make it that far, we didn't even make it through ten floors of the game." Asuna yelled at Kayaba while everyone else was in an uproar.

"That's insane beat an mmo, that takes forever." Klein shouts.

"Wha, what, what." Sinon thinks while almost blacking out from fear.

"Lastly I have left a gift in each of your inventories, please have a look." Kayaba says as he disappears.

Everyone took out the item in their inventories that is except for Sinon who was still in shock. It was a mirror.

"What's a mirro" Asuna said but got cut off a blue gleam that had erupted and her and everyone who had pulled it out.

Sinon had finally came to her senses to see someone who she knows from real life… Kazuto.

-Flashback-

September 14 2021

"Hey everyone this is Kazuto and he'll be joining this class." Shino teacher announces.

"You take the seat next to that girl over there." My teacher says to Kazuto while she points at me.

Kazuto takes a seat next to her and extends out his hand to me while saying. "Hey I'm Kazuto Kirigaya."

"…Shino… Asada." I say quietly and shyly.

"Nice to meet you." Kazuto says as he returns his focus to the teacher.

They sit throughout the whole entire day making almost no interaction until the final bell went off.

"Hey Asada." A group of girls walk up to me. "Gives us your money, now." They demand me.

"No." I say quietly.

I look around for somebody and all I see was Kazuto standing in the doorway.

He nods and turns around and walks towards me but not before.

"Bang." The leader of the group says while holding up her hands in a gun formation.

I start to shake and falls to me knees and see him. The man's face the color from his face escaping to the blood. His pale face in agony. The blood …

"Are you okay." A voice asked me. "Are you okay." He repeated.

"Hmm." I responded.

"Do you want me to get the teacher?" He asked me.

I shook my head no.

"Are you sure?" He said reluctantly.

"Please don't." I said quietly.

"Okay." He says hesitantly. "But let me walk you home, okay?"

"…Okay." I say.

They walked to her home without any talking.

"Thankyou." I say without any emotion.

"Welcome, Are you okay now?" Kazuto asks.

"Yes." I sigh.

"Bye, see you tomorrow. " He says to me.

"Bye." I say as I close the door.

-Flashback End-

"Who are you." Klein asks.

"Who are you." Kirito responds to Klein.

"This is Klein." Asuna says sarcastically while waving her hands at Klein. "This is Kirito." she says sarcastically while waving her hands at Kirito. "And well Sinon hasn't changed." She says.

"THANKS." Klein says sarcastically and intensified.

"So you aren't her then." Kirito thinks.

"Why are you staring at me?" Sinon says.

"Sorry!" Kirito's response immediately. "Did you use the mirror?" Quickly changing the subject.

"NO NO NO, he's onto me." Sinon thinks. "Yes!" She says hastily.

Kirito starts to run off with Asuna but Sinon and Klein stop them in a alley.

"There's a town up ahead if we make it there first we can get the first stab at the monster, come with us." Kirito says as he extends his hand.

"We can make it there together, the only way we are going to survive this death game is by leveling up and getting op." Asuna continues off Kirito.

"... You see came I into this game with friends." Klein starts. " We had stayed in line for an entire night to get this game, I have to go back to them." Klein says. "I'm sorry can't ask you guys to help me, I mean we just met, don't worry I ran a guild in the last game I played, I got this." Klein finishes after he sees their looks of worry on their faces.

"Message us if you have any trouble." Asuna requests.

"Will do, good luck, you three." Klein says as he turns around and walks away.

"Are you going to join us?" Asuna asks Sinon.

"I know I can trust Kazuto." Sinon thinks. "But who is she, can I tell them?" She asks herself.

"HEY!" Kirito shouts as he chases after Klein. "Hey." Kirito says out breath after he grabs Klein's arm. "I'm sorry, survive… please." Kirito asks Klein. "Bye." He says as though he is never going to see him again.

"HEY, … Kirito, you look better this way." Klein says in response to Kirito's different look.

"And that scruffy face fits you way more." Kirito says then turns around and runs. "No regrets." Kirito thinks as he runs away.

"Yes." Sinon says. "I will be different, I will be strong, I will be strong." Sinon thinks to herself. "They will help me, they will never know, I am Sinon." She says to herself.

"Great!" Asuna says happily.

"We're leaving." Kirito says as he runs by them.

"... Kirito, Are you okay?" Asuna asks him but keeps on running.

"Did you ever have to deal with him like this in the beta?" Sinon asks.

"No." Asuna answers. "Let's get going before he runs off without us." Asuna says.

They begin to see him in the field fighting off several wolfs.

"I will survive." He thinks as he kills the first one. "I will make it back." He thinks as the second and third die. "They will see me again." He thinks as he kills the four. This world can't beat me." He thinks as he slices two wolves. "I will survive." Kirito thinks as the last one dies. Then a pop up appears before him.

Level four - Level five.

Kirito's mouth curves into a smile. "I will survive." Kirito shouts as he raises his sword to the sun. During that battle he didn't lose a single health point.

XXXX

Thank you all for the support on my first chapter.

Feel free to PM if you have any pointers or ideas.

I'll try to get the next chapter up next Sunday.

Thank you all for reading and have a fantastic day.


	3. Shatter

December, 2nd 2022

-All-

A million shards come out of a monster.

Level 12 - Level 13.

"Guys." Kirito shouts at Sinon and Asuna. "We found it." He says while looking at a huge arched door.

"Gals." Sinon says sarcastically.

"... Door." Kirito says annoyed.

"Should we go in?" Sinon asks.

"No, it took raid games of 50 people." Asuna answers her. "And this time we have 10 times the amount of people." Asuna acknowledges.

"No one trust us anyways." Kirito says as he slams his sword in his sheath.

When the first days of sao had finished people started turning the blame from Kayaba to us, the beta testers. They had blamed us because we had more experience than them. For leaving them behind and making ourselves strong.

"So what, are we going to wait for someone else to find it?" Sinon says.

"Argo!" Kirito says right before taking off.

"What's he going on now?" Sinon asks. "Who's Argo?" Sinon asks.

"A beta tester, Kirito knew her a lot better than I did." Asuna response.

"Does he know any male players?" Sinon asks sarcastically.

"Klein." Asuna answers.

"It was a rhetorical question." Sinon sighs.

"I'm going to continue leveling." Asuna says as she starts to strike a monster.

"How's Argo going to help?" Sinon asks.

"You sure ask a lot of questions, why don't you go find out." Asuna response.

"I will." Sinon says as she begins to leave. "Do you need anything?" Sinon asks Asuna

"A new rapier." Asuna says.

"You wish." Sinon says. "You're paying for it." Sinon acknowledges.

"Please don't break my budget?" Asuna begs her.

"Nah, I'll leave you broke." Sinon says as she turns around and runs before Asuna can say anything.

"Hey Argo." Kirito yells at Argo. It had taken him about a half in hour to find him. "Can I sell you some information?" Kirito asks when he gets closer to her.

"What info?" Argo asks.

"Boss room, we mapped it out." Kirito answers.

"How much?" Argo asks.

"Nothing just sell it asap." Kirito says.

"No catches." Argo asks.

"You know me." Kirito states.

"Okay, but the next store you go to restock the guide books for me." Argo says as he pulls a stock of guide books out.

"So you're the author." Kirito says in amazement.

"It's not like I can fight, it's my of way or saving lives." Argo says.

"See you around Argo." Kirito says as he takes books out of Argo's hands.

"Hey let me friend you." Argo says. "Wouldn't be right if my first customer isn't on my friends list.

"Nah it's just that you like me." Kirito says as he accepts the request.

"Shut up." Argo says. "We're friends from the beta." Argo continues.

"See ya around." Kirito says he begins to check how Asuna and Sinon are doing. He sees that Sinon is in the town at the shop. He finds Asuna still in the dungeon.

"NO!" Kirito thinks as he starts running towards where Sinon was.

"Sinon!" Kirito gasps.

"What?" Sinon asks confused.

"How long has Asuna been in the dungeon?" Kirito asks Sinon urgently.

"About a half hour, why?" Sinon asks but not before Kirito is already running. "Does he ever tell us anything." Sinon thinks.

They run all the way to to where Asuna is and they see her barely standing. Then they see a monster running up towards her.

"NO!" Kirito screams as he runs towards her but his sword was tad bit too far to block the monster's spear. But her's wasn't. A rapier had delayed the spear enough time for Kirito's sword to slice through the monster.

Kirito looks down at Asuna who still had her sword in her hand not to mention she had fainted. "How?" Kirito asked himself as he turned his head to Sinon. She had the rapier's sheath in her hand.

"Thought it was to heavy for you." Kirito says as he picks up Asuna.

"Do you really think I was just increasing my accuracy?" She asks rhetorically. "Besides, this thing is really light." She says in amazement.

"Hey there's your main weapon that you have been looking for." Kirito says jokingly.

"Shut up." Sinon says jokingly.

They walk back into the town and buy an inn room, or three to be exact.

"Someone should watch over her." Sinon states.

"Well lets see candidate A." He says as he points at Sinon. "A girl that who can't pick up a sword." Kirito says with a sarcastic tone.

"I just picked up one!" Sinon exclaims.

"Besides you haven't met IRL." Kirito says.

"Neither have you." Sinon exclaims again.

"And candidate B, Male." Kirito says whilst ignoring the fact that Sinon had just pointed out.

"Whatever." Sinon say as they get to Asuna's room. Kirito lays her down on the bed and walks out.

"Oh yeah by the way, the raid group meeting is tomorrow." Kirito informs Sinon.

"Thanks." Sinon says while yawning.

"See you tomorrow." Kirito says.

XXXX

"Kazuto." Sinon says whilst knocking on his door. "NO NO he'll figure out quick do something." Sinon thinks. She tries to open the door and falls in.

"Sinon, what are you doing, did Asuna wake up." Kirito says sleepily. "Did she just call me Kazuto, is it…" Kirito thinks but gets cut off by Sinon.

"No, I was wondering if you could come into my room, I was having nightmares." Sinon asks shyly.

"Um, sure." Kirito says sleepily. "That's probably her, or maybe it's just me, I mean it is what 2 in the morning.

They both walk into Sinon's room and Sinon gets into her bed. But to her surprise Kirito gets into the the crappy armchair next to the bed. "He could have gotten into bed with me." Sinon thinks sadly. "Y…" Sinon begins to start to talk but then realizes how irrational her thinking is.

"What." Kirito says quietly.

"Nothing." Sinon says embarrassed as she sinks into the sheets of the bed.

Kirito stays there until about 5 am when he gets up and knocks on Asuna's door.

No response. Instead of giving up Kirito had used the second key to get in. He walks into the room and sits door on the chair in the room. As he sits he thinks "I hope she doesn't think I'm a creep or gets mad."

"Is he the type of guy I want, protective but gentle, caring but teases, over-confident yet calm, and kind. Yes this is who I want to spend the little bit of what is left of my life with." Asuna decides while fake sleeping. "But how do I tell him?" Asuna thinks to herself.

XXXX

Thank you for all the support from the last chapters.

Feel free to PM if you have any pointers or ideas.

Next chapter will be up next Sunday.

Thank you all for reading and have a fantastic day.


	4. Sufferance

December 3, 2022

-All-

"Kirito." Sinon says while knocking on Asuna's door.

"Yeah." Kirito response.

"Why are you in here?" She asks.

"She nearly died yesterday, the least I can do is be here when she wakes up." Kirito response.

"Isn't that creepy?" Sinon asks while attempting to giggle a little bit, but It comes at like she is making fun of him.

"She wasn't that mad when she woke up." Kirito says.

"She's awake?" Sinon says confound while looking at the bed.

"Yeah I'm awake." Asuna says while walking into the room from the bathroom.

"Hey I'm going to hit the hay, I'm tired from carrying you all day yesterday." Kirito says while walking out of the room.

"I said I was sorry!" Asuna exclaims.

"No need to be sad, I was glad to, just next time let me have a good rest before hand." Kirito says jokingly. "Can you guys go to the raid meeting, it's at 12?" Kirito asks.

"Sure." Asuna and Sinon says simultaneously.

XXXX

"Hey players and welcome to our meeting." A speaker says. "Yesterday our group had found the boss room." He continues.

"So this is who brought the info." Sinon thinks.

"My name is Diavel, and my job I role is knight." Diavel says.

"There is no job system in this game." One player says while most other players laugh.

"Now…" Diavel starts to continue but gets cut of by a new comer.

"Hey my names Kibaou I have something to get off my chest." Kibaou says.

"Some of you here need to apologize to the 2 thousand people who have died already." Kibaou states.

Asuna gulps hoping that none of them would accuse her of being one that should apologize.

"Are you saying that the beta testers should apologize." Diavel says breaking the silence.

"Great!." Asuna sarcastically thinks in her head. "It's a month in and they still haven't gotten over this." She thinks.

"Why are people so mad at them most of the people who have help me were beta testers, except Klein." Sinon thinks. "Yet again Klein did hit on me." She continues to think.

"Of course I am!" Kibaou exclaims. "The day this death game started they left us all in the dust, leaving us to die." He says. "They took all the good grinding spots and quest so they would get ahead." He states. "And I have no doubt that someone here was in the beta." He shouts at us.

Asuna grabs Sinon's hand a closes her eyes.

"They should drop down to their knees and apologize, give up all the col and items the have grinded up, if they don't we can't trust them as party members!" Kibaou shouts at all of them.

Asuna starts quietly whimpering as she thinks "Why can't we all get along and beat the game?"

There was a couple moments of silence until a axes user stands up.

"Hang on a minute." He says as he scrolls through his menu. "My name is Agil and I want to make sure I understand you correctly." Agil says.

"I…" Kibaou starts to say but stops.

"Are you saying that so many beginners died because the beta testers didn't babysit them." Agil says. "They should take responsibility, apologize and provide compensation?" Agil continues.

"Yeah." Kibaou says definitely.

"You have this item right." Agil says while holding a book in his right hand. "It was provided free at almost every store on this floor." Agil states.

"Yeah but who cares." Kibaou says.

"The two thousand who died." Agil says grimly as he turns around. "This book has information that was compiled by the beta testers." Agil informs the crowd.

Murmurs run throughout the crowd as Kibaou's face turns sour and Asuna finally opens her eyes.

"Everyone had equal the information, yet many players still died. Now may we not let their deaths be in vain." Agil says as he sits back down.

"Now with that finished, thank you Agil may you all please split up into parties of six." Diavel says.

"And we're the oddballs, great, just what I wanted." Sinon says as she looks around at everyone else.

"It will be fine." Asuna says reassuring.

"Now in the guide book it has plans and how we take out Illfang the Kobold Lord the boss for this floor." Diavel says while Kibaou walks out of the meeting.

"He is also guarded by Ruin Kobold Sentinels." Diavel continues. "He wields an ax and buckler then switches to a Talwar when his last HP bar hits red." Diavel informs them.

The players are all in amazement at how difficult their foe is going to be.

"That concludes the briefing, we will leave here tomorrow at ten." Diavel says.

Both Asuna and Sinon get up but they hear a person talking to them.

"Hey I see that your party is by far the smallest one." Diavel states. "Can you see if you can get your party up to around four members perhaps?" Diavel asks.

"Can we go to three members." Sinon tries to barter.

"I'd would rather not lose any lives." Diavel states.

"Would it help to say that we were the people who sold Argo the information?" Asuna asks.

"You should have started with that, sure but not two." He says while chuckling a little bit.

"Thanks." Sinon says to Diavel.

"See you two at the boss meeting." Diavel says while turning around and leaving.

"We should go back to Kirito." Asuna says.

"Let's go." Sinon says.

XXXX

"Can't wait to meet him." Kirito says. "He seems like an ass." He says. "How did you shut him up." Kirito asks.

"It wasn't us it was an ax user name Agil." Sinon response. "He had used a book that was apparently was made by the beta testers." Sinon says.

"That was Argo." Kirito stated.

"Really!" Asuna exclaims. "Never would have thought." Asuna says.

"Here's a copy for you two." Kirito says as he pulls out two copies of the guide book and hands it to them.

"Hey Kirito could we stay in one room tonight, you know for money saving purposes." Asuna asks.

"Well that makes it sound less creepy." Sinon thinks to herself.

"Well that's not creepy." Kirito says.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Asuna retorts.

"I guess I'll take the floor." Kirito says. "I have some errands to run see ya later." Kirito says as he walks away.

"I have to go also I want a new knife this one's weight is unbalanced, you need anything." Sinon asks Asuna.

"I'm fine, going to start cooking, you be back soon." Asuna says.

XXXX

"Where's Kirito it's almost ten and his sandwich is most definitely cold?" Asuna asks. "How was shopping." Asuna asks Sinon.

"It turns out that knives are expensive, at least for my budget." Sinon says.

"How much?" Asuna asks.

"10000 col for the one I wanted, but I decided to not literally cut my budget in half and stick with the one I had!" Sinon exclaims.

"We should get to bed, it's like 10 pm we need sleep for these boss raids." Asuna says.

"Shouldn't we wait up for Kirito?" Sinon asks.

"We're fine he will understand." Asuna say as she gets into the bed.

The room they had rent out only had one bed and Sinon just realized that she lost the fight for the bed. "Well that chair doesn't look too uncomfortable." Sinon thinks.

"We both can sleep in this bed, just leave the ethics code on." Asuna says after seeing Sinon's look of confusion.

"... Okay…" Sinon says shyly as she gets into the bed.

XXXX

Kirito walks into the room with two new weapons. As he walks in he sees the girls sleeping on the bed.

"They look cute." Kirito thinks to himself. "No no." Kirito thinks as he places a weapon next to Asuna, The Wind Fleuret. Then he places a note on top of it.

"Sorry." He thinks as he places a dagger next to Sinon, The Shadow Stiletto. The he places note next to the dagger. Then walks out of the room.

XXXX

Thank you for all the support on all of the chapters.

Feel free to PM if you have any pointers or ideas.

Next chapter will be up on next Sunday.

Thank you all for reading and have a great day.


	5. Solitary

December 4, 2022

-Asuna and Sinon-

Sinon wakes to see a dagger waiting for her. In fact it was the same dagger that she had wanted to buy.

"Wahh?" She says while confused. She sits up to see there is a note there also.

"Hey Sinon." The note begins.

"I overheard that you need a dagger so here's the one that Argo uses. I have never brought a dagger before, more of a sword person." The note continues.

"This is your early Christmas gift just encase we aren't together when the holiday comes around, from Kirito." The note finishes.

Sinon picks up the dagger at looks over at Asuna who is still sleeping. She sees a note and a rapier sitting next to her. Sinon walks over and reads Asuna's note. Their wasn't much of a difference between their notes.

Sinon opens her menu a starts to put her battle gear on but sees something she doesn't like, it's 9:51.

"Asuna!" Sinon screams. "Wake up!" Sinon screams

"Whaaa." Asuna says sleepily.

"It's 9:50, we have to be there a ten!" Sinon exclaims.

"Ten more minutes." Asuna say before she turns her face in her pillow.

In response to this she throws Asuna's present on top of her while saying "Wake up!"

"Ouch!" Asuna says annoyed. " Why's it so sharp." Asuna says while sitting up.

"There's new rapier, Kirito gave it to." Sinon says.

"Really!" Asuna says while looking over her new weapon.

"Get dressed you can look over it once we get there." Sinon says hastily.

XXXX

They girls barely make it to the meeting. Then they see Kirito and walk over to him.

"Hey Kirito." Sinon and Asuna say in unison.

"Hey." Kirito says. "Overslept?" Kirito asks.

"Yeah, why does it have to be so early." Asuna says.

"One bright side to the floor is that you don't oversleep." Kirito says jokingly.

XXXX

"You all ready." Diavel shouts standing directly under the arched doorway.

"Yea!" Everyone shouts as they all run in. A huge boss appears before and like they said he had an ax and buckler.

"A, B distract it." Diavel shouts. "C, D right flank." He continues. "E left flank, F keep the sentinels off of us." He finishes.

Kirito and Asuna run into the sentinels, switching while Sinon was throwing picks.

Diavel knew what he was doing, a natural born leader. He gotten the boss into the red without a single death. But then he runs to strike the boss but the boss was different this time.

"Diavel, NO that's a No Dachi not a Talwar!" Kirito shouts but Illfang had already started his attack.

At the last moment the boss had been struck and was stunned for just enough time for Diavel to get out of range.

Kirito thinks "Thanks Sinon." as he sees the knife in Illfang's hide.

"Asuna!" Kirito shouts as he starts running. Immediately Asuna starts running towards Illfang. Illfang swings his No Dachi at Kirito who had recently gained his aggro.

"Switch!" Kirito shouts as he deflects Illfang's sword. In response Asuna jumps in front of Kirito a hits Illfang with her rapier but nearly gets hit by his sword.

"Asuna fallback, I got him." Kirito commands Asuna.

"What no!" Asuna shouts. Right as Asuna is speaking Kirito sees a knife wiz by his face and hits Illfang.

"Just attack!" Sinon yells.

Both Kirito and Asuna start to run in but Kirito takes the driver's seat and gets hit by the No Dachi and gets thrown off to the side. The Illfangs jumps to before he swings his word and right as his sword is about to hit Kirito an ax blocks the strike.

"We'll hold him off so you can heal." Agil says as other players join him.

Kirito stands up and drinks a healing pot.

"Kirito." Sinon yells.

"What." Kirito says exhausted.

"Be careful." Sinon says caringly.

Kirito sees that Agil and the others are being overpower. To the point of which Illfang was about to deliver his final blow. Seeing this Kirito jumps up into the air and stabs Illfang.

Congratulations! appears above them.

Kirito pants from being exhausted. The last strike bonus appears in front of him, Coat of Midnight.

Everyone starts to clap until one player speaks up.

"Stop clapping." Kibaou shouts. "How did you know what sword he was using?" He asks rhetorically.

Everyone fell silent.

"You were a beta tester." Kibaou accuses him.

"So what's so bad about being a beta tester?" Sinon asks.

"Absolutely nothing, we're just a scapegoat." Kirito says.

"So you are one." Kibaou says as he unsheathes his sword.

"I'm not going to attack you." Kirito says he says right as Kibaou swings his word at Kirito but Kirito easily blocks it.

"Do you want to get embarrassed." Kirito says.

Kibaou swings his word at Kirito but this time Kirito instead of blocking it he disarms Kibaou.

"How did you do that, you cheated." Kibaou says.

"A beta tester and a cheater he's a beater." One of the players said.

"I like that." Kirito says after a diabolical laughter. "Just remember don't classify me as a beta tester, I better than them." Kirito finishes as he walks to the stairs up to the 2nd floor.

"Hey wait up." Sinon says she follows Kirito.

"No." Kirito says when he reaches the top of the stairs.

"What." The girls say confused.

"If someone you trust invites you to a guild don't hesitate." Kirito says as he disbands the party.

"What about you." Asuna says.

"Are you just going to leave us here?" Sinon asks.

"You both are incredible." Kirito says.

"Are you going to leave us here?" The girls ask.

"There's a limit to what a solo player can do." Kirito states.

"You're leaving us." Sinon says.

"Sorry." Kirito says.

"If you are sorry you wouldn't leave us!" Sinon yells at him as she starts to cry.

"It's better for you not to be with a beater like me." Kirito says.

"You're going solo." Asuna says.

"Yes." Kirito says.

"You're going to get yourself killed." Asuna says.

"The limit applies to you too." Sinon says.

"You both know how strong I am." Kirito states.

"Enjoy your gifts." Kirito says.

"I will never forgive you." Asuna says.

"So that's what he meant by not being together." Sinon thinks.

"You were going to leave us no matter what." Sinon says.

"Good luck." Kirito says as he walks through the gate leaving both girls standing at the foot of the stairs in sorrow.


	6. Stock

December 6,2022

-Kirito and Coper-

"Hey, how long has it been?" Coper asks while holding out a hand to Kirito who was knock over on the ground.

"Way too long, how are you doing." Kirito asks as he takes Coper's hand.

"Hey you want to help me on this quest, these nepents are supposed to drop a rare item." Kirito says.

"Sure, do you know what they drop?" Coper asks.

"I wish she had told me." Kirito states as he kills a nepent.

"She's contacted you too." Coper says.

"I'm more surprised that she contacted you." Kirito says.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Coper retorts.

"It's not like you helped the beta tester stereotype." Kirito states. "What you did is almost spot on to our stereotype." Kirito says.

"You would do the same if it weren't for Asuna, where is she by the way?" Coper asks.

"We split apart, you ready to beat this game?" Kirito asks.

"So you broke up." Coper says mockingly.

"How many times do I have to tell you we're not together." Kirito says.

"Let's see how that goes buddy." Coper says mockingly.

"And I wonder why your not in a party." Kirito says to himself. "You ready to get this item?" Kirito says.

"You know it." Coper says as he pulled out his Anneal Blade.

XXXX

"Hey finally got it."Coper states.

"Man that was a bitch." Kirito says. "We had killed well over 1000." Kirito states.

"Well that's what we get for playing a mmo." Coper says.

"It's like Kayaba made it harder for us." Kirito states.

"You mean the constant fear of death isn't enough." Coper says.

"You ready to sell that long sword?" Kirito says.

"You mean you don't want it?" Coper asks.

"That's a two handed long sword, this one handed one has more maneuverability." Kirito response.

"Why don't you use a shield then?" Coper asks.

"A shield also cuts your maneuverability." Kirito states.

"True, where are we going to sell it?" Coper asks.

"I was thinking Argo, I mean she did give us this information." Kirito says.

"You think she'll buy it for more than the NPC's." Coper asks.

"Definitely, those NPC would rob us." Kirito states.

"So where is Argo?" Coper asks.

"Probably on the first floor, I'll go get her." Kirito says.

XXXX

"Hey how long has it been?" Argo asks.

"What was the second week of the beta?" Coper says.

"Yea that feels like centuries ago." Argo says. "So what do you want to sell that sword for?" Argo asks.

"Market price." Kirito says jokingly.

"6000 col less than market price." Coper says abruptly.

"4000 col." Argo barters.

"4000 col sure." Kirito jumps on the offer.

"Less than market price." Argo says.

"5000 col less than market price." Coper says.

"Deal." Argo says as she holds her hands. In response Coper shakes her hand.

"Hey Coper, one thing." Argo starts.

"What?" Coper asks.

"Let me friend you." Argo says as she sends him the request.

"You got a thing for 14 year old boys." Kirito says jokingly.

"And 1000 col and you have a deal." Coper barters.

"The things I do, sure." Argo accepts the offer.

"Thanks." Both teens says as they walk away with their col.

XXXX

"You know what?" Kirito says.

"No I don't, but continue." Coper says.

"It was a rhetorical question." Kirito sighs.

"But that reaction was priceless." Coper says.

"Do you remember when we first meet?" Kirito asks.

"Which IRL or game?" Coper asks.

"Beta." Kirito says.

"Yeah remember like it was this year." Coper says jokingly.

"It was this year." Kirito retorts.

"Priceless reaction." Coper says after Kirito's nostrils flare.

"You're insufferable." Kirito states.

"You're not much better there yourself." Coper says.

"Better than you at this game." Kirito says. "I mean you tried to use a hiding skill that's meant for players on monsters when we first meet." Kirito mocks Coper.

"I was trying to get a rare item." Coper sighs

"Yeah, off my dead body." Kirito retorts.

"Let's not talk about that?" Coper asks. "Why did you even talk to me in the first place?' Coper says swiftly changing the subject.

"..." Kirito almost says something until remembers the conversation he had with Asuna that day.

-Flashback-

"Come on Kirito, go find a friend." Asuna urges Kirito.

"I have you and Argo, I'm fine." Kirito says shrugging her off. She had been urging him for the past few days say that he really need to interact with more male people in general.

"You are not fine." Asuna immediately snaps back. "What we meet, for what an hour each day the in game and you and Argo almost never together. " Asuna states.

"Remember I go to school." Kirito defends himself.

"You said yourself that at times that the virtual world was more important than real one." Asuna said.

"You know what, I will." Kirito says.

"Yes, finally, thank you." Asuna says with relief.

Kirito swings his arm down to open up his menu then he clicks the main menu.

"What are you doing?" Asuna asks.

"Going to spend my day with a friend." Kirito says as he logs out.

-End flashback-

"Yeah it was really late." Kirito says.

"What were you doing up that late?" Coper asks.

"Dude playing sao was like sleep for me." Kirito says through laughter.

"Dude my life is sao." Coper says back.

"You ready to go back to town?" Kirito asks.

"Oh come on we've only been out here for 14 hours." Coper says. "Oh god maybe we should go back to town." Coper realized.

"You think." Kirito says as he starts walking.

XXXX

"Hey Kirito." Coper says right before kirito walks into his room at the inn.

"Yeah." Kirito response.

"Party?" Coper asks. "I mean we're both 14 year old beaters." Coper states.

Kirito sees the request pop in front of him as a result he thinks back to the last party he was in. "Sinon and Asuna what if they weren't okay." Kirito thinks

"I need go do something, give a couple of minutes." Kirito says as he walks away from Coper.

"What, is that a no?" Coper asks but Kirito had already left his eyesight.

Kirito had no idea where they were but there was one person he could trust, Argo.

"Hey Argo, can you keep an eye on Sinon and Asuna?" Kirito asks as he pulls out 20000 col. "Here's your payment." Kirito says as he puts into her hands.

"They hate you." Argo says.

"I know, that's why I gave you the job." Kirito says.

"So what you want me to party with them?" Argo says.

"No, just make sure they are living, thanks." Kirito says right before turns around and jogs back to the inn.

"Yes." Kirito answers Coper as he accepts his offer.

"Beaters for life." Coper says as he hold out his hand.

"Just don't try to kill me this time." Kirito says jokingly as he shakes Coper's hand.

XXXX

Thank you all for reading my first OC chapter

Have a great rest of the weekend :)

Next chapter will be out on Sunday


	7. Striving

December 11,2022

-Asuna-

"Why?" Asuna thought while looking around. She was back in the first boss room. She walked to the base of the stairs.

"Why would you leave me?" She thinks will looking up at where he was standing.

"No." Kirito's words still echo through her head seven days later. She stood there immobilized as his words played through her head.

She had visited this room each day since he had left. She hadn't brought herself to fight over those days.

She continued to walking around the room as the events of that day replayed in her head.

After what felt to her like years she climbs up the stairs and walks out the room and into the second floor.

She walks into her inn, what felt like her home for the past couple of days.

She stretches and lays down on the bed.

"You save me then leave me the very next day, why?" She asks him in her mind.

"After all that why would you leave me." She asks herself.

"Am I not good enough?" She questions herself.

She pulls out her rapier.

"What was this for?" She asks herself. She swings it around as she sits at the edge of her bed.

"Why Kirito, why, what we had was so good, why did you have to break it?" She asks her mind as she swings her sword wildly.

"We were perfect, we had basically soloed a boss, and then you leave me." Asuna thinks to herself.

"I will never forgive you." She thinks angrily as she throws her sword at the ground.

She buries her face in her hands.

"Please Kirito take me back, I promise I will change whatever made you leave me." She thinks desperately.

She continues to eat away at herself until she falls asleep.

XXXX

"Hello Sleepy." A female voice says.

"Wha?" Asuna says as she opens her eyes.

"Hello." Argo says.

"How did you get in here?" Asuna says.

"It's kinda easy to get into a room that isn't locked." Argo says jokingly.

"It doesn't mean you do that you perverted rat." Asuna says annoyedly.

"Come on out, there is something I want to show you." Argo says.

"Whatever it is it can wait."Asuna says. "I'm taking today off." Asuna states.

"You've taken the last couple days off, I won't disappoint you." Argo states.

"What could you show that I would care about?" Asuna asks rhetorically. "I'll just wait for the beaters to clear the game, I mean they have beat in their name." Asuna disappoints Argo.

"No!" Argo shouts. "You'll lose yourself and that's something I don't or anyone else would like to see!"

"He would." Asuna thinks to herself. Argo was the first person that she has talked to since the innkeeper, who was a NPC in a week.

"I don't care." Asuna says defiantly. "And you're not going to change my mind." Asuna states.

"Then who will?" Argo retorts.

"No one." Asuna say as she gives Argo a cold and lifeless look.

"Stop it!" Argo shouts again. "If you stay here and wait for everyone else to clear the game, do you think your sanity will hold up?" Argo questions her.

In response to this Asuna gets her sword out from her inventory and start swinging it violently. But her swing had lack both skill and technique, so one hit from Argo's Shadow Stiletto and her rapier flies out of her hand.

"If you stay here you are going to lose everything that you are whether it be real world or the virtual world, Bye." Argo says as she slams the door behind her.

"What was that all about?" Asuna thinks to herself. Asuna continues to think about what Argo had said to her and finally after a week of solitude she walks out of the inn leaving her keys with the innkeeper.

She stretches and looks up at the sun and thinks, "What to do."

"Might as well get my sword sharpened." Asuna thinks. She walks around for awhile until she is stopped in her tracks. "Coper?" Asuna thinks after she sees the man.

She ducks behind a building but unlucky for her someone was already standing there. As a result she trips and falls over on to the ground.

"Sorry miss." A girl says to her as she holds out her hand. The girl wasn't much younger than herself maybe even older. Dark brown hair with a baby doll face.

"Miss?" She said again. "Did I hit you that hard?" She asks.

"Oh, sorry that was my fault." Asuna says as she takes her hand. "I'm Asuna." she says after she stands up.

"Hello Asuna, I'm Ri, Lizbeth." Lizbeth says.

"Do you know where I could find a blacksmith?" Asuna asks.

"You're in luck, you just tripped over one." Lizbeth acknowledges.

"I'm sorry about that, could you sharpen this sword twice?" Asuna asks.

"It might break." Lizbeth states.

"Just believe in yourself." Asuna says as she gives the sword to Lizbeth.

"Are you sure?" Lizbeth makes sure.

"Yes." Asuna says defiantly.

"Okay, just stand back if thing breaks the pieces will go flying." Lizbeth states.

Lizbeth sharpens Asuna's twice and says "Their you go."

"Thanks." Asuna says while admiring her upgraded weapon.

"That was the first upgrade that has not failed." Lizbeth acknowledges.

"Well consider me lucky then." Asuna says. "Hey odd question could I, … friend you?" Asuna asks as she sends a friend request.

"Sure, I guess." Lizbeth says as she clicks the accept button.

"One question." Asuna starts.

"Yeah." Lizbeth says.

Then Asuna explains her situation with Kirito but she nevers says the man's name.

"Wow, um do you trust me with that?" Lizbeth says overwhelmed.

"I trust you more than I trust myself." Asuna states.

"..." Lizbeth stood there and thinks for a couple of moments.

"I'm sorry for asking." Asuna says.

In response to this Lizbeth hugs Asuna.

"Don't be." Lizbeth says. "I can't make that decision for you, but i can make that decision easier on you." Lizbeth states.

"Thankyou." Asuna says.

"So what are you going to do?" Lizbeth asks abruptly.

Asuna reaches deep inside herself and pulls out the courage that has been there the whole entire time.

"Going to do something that I should have done a long time ago." Asuna states as she breaks the hug and turns around and runs.

"I'm going to tell him." Asuna thinks. She smiles the biggest fullest smile that she has smiled in a while.

"Finally, I will be loved, … finally." Asuna thinks while feeling resolved.

XXXX

Thank you all for reading this chapter

Hope you all have a great rest of the weekend

Next Chapter will be out on Sunday


	8. Spurning

December 12, 2022

-Argo, Coper and Asuna-

"Hey how are you we…" Argo starts to talk but gets interrupted.

"Have you seen Kirito?" Asuna asks.

"Not in a couple of days." Coper response. "Why?" Coper asks.

"I thought you were dead set being useless." Argo teases.

"Did you tell him, please tell me you didn't…" Asuna's says while freaking out.

"Don't worry I didn't." Argo interrupts her.

"Tell him what?" Coper says.

"Don't tell him either." Asuna states.

"Don't worry patient doctor confidentiality." Argo chuckles.

"You're a rat for pete's sake!" Asuna shouts at Argo.

"Just trying to lighten up the mood." Argo states.

"What did he tell to you the last time you saw him?" Asuna asks the both of them.

"He said he needed to go help with something then left." Coper states. "I thought it was you that he was talking about." Coper says. "But hey I don't know what he did in his first month." Coper says jokingly.

"Is he still alive?" Asuna asks.

"He is still on my friend list." Both Coper and Argo states.

"HE FRIENDED YOU!" Asuna screams.

"I take it that he never friended you." Argo says while biting her lip.

"Did you ever ask him to?" Coper asks.

"I swear I am going to kill him!" Asuna says.

"Woah chill." Coper says.

"Please." Argo adds. "I'll add you so you don't get left out." Argo states mistakingly.

"Left out, LEFT OUT, doesn't even begin to explain it!" Asuna shouts angrily.

"I'll talk to him if you want?" Coper says.

"And now a beater is taking pity on me." Asuna states while laughing at herself.

"Woah take it back!" Coper says angrily.

"Okay calm down, we are all beta testers here." Argo says slowly.

"Why would I take that back it's the truth." Asuna says hastily totally ignoring Argo.

"Doesn't give you the right to." Coper spats at her.

"I... don't... care." Asuna says relentlessly.

"So you don't want me to talk to him." Coper says back.

"Okay please, please stop?" Argo asks.

"NO WHY WOULD I STOP, EVERYTHING THAT I COULD CARE ABOUT IN THIS WORLD HAS LEFT, SO TELL ME WOULD YOU STOP!" Asuna screams.

"..." Both Coper and Argo were silent.

"Exactly." Asuna says as she turns around while flipping her hair. She was going to walk away but he was right behind her.

"Hey." Kirito says with his eyes wide open. "So, I am going to leave now." Kirito says shyly as he starts to slowly back up.

"If you ever leave me again, so help me I will kill you." Asuna says as she collapses into Kirito's arms.

"Pretty sure you already were going to." Kirito states as Asuna falls into his arms.

Kirito's back straightens as soon as Asuna falls into his arms. He looks up at Argo with a "What should I do face".

Argo's face turns into a slight grin with a I told you so/ haha / have fun.

"Please." Kirito thinks as his face over exaggerates what he is thinking.

"Quick excuse." Coper tries to communicates to Kirito but does it extremely bad.

"What drop her." Kirito thinks as a puzzled look scrolls across his face. "I may be a little mean but I'm not down right rude." Kirito thinks.

Coper thinks for a second then he had epiphany. "Right we're in a game." He thinks right before he pulls up a message box and send Kirito a message.

"Hahahahahahahahaha, so two choices either get away and collect yourself or just yolo it here." Is what Coper's message says.

"Um…, so…, I kind of have somewhere where I need to be." Kirito says while biting his lip.

In response Asuna squeezes him harder in response.

"Please… I kin (gasp) da need to… go." Kirito asks but Asuna doesn't let up. "I'll give you my sword until I come back." Kirito barely gets out.

After little bit she lets go of him and says, "Okay but promise me you'll come back, Okay." Asuna demands quitely.

"I'll come back." Kirito says. But right after he says that Coper gives him the look. The one look that says he's going to regret this. Kirito makes the face "We need to talk."

Right after he had given his sword to Asuna he had said goodbye to the three of them. But right as he got out of their view he sent a message to Coper to meet him at a cafe on the first floor.

XXXX

"Hey." Coper says as he sits down across from Kirito.

"Hey." Kirito says before he takes a sip of his drink.

"So what are you going to do?" Coper asks.

"I don't know." Kirito says as he runs his hand through his hair.

"She really likes you." Coper states.

"And clingy." Kirito sighs.

"Haha, right." Coper says. "What happened between you two, I mean you haven't talked about Asuna the whole time we have been together." Coper states.

"I mean, I don't even know her in real life." Kirito states.

"For all we know this is real life." Coper states. "Oh, can I have a black herb tea please." Coper says to the NPC.

"There is something more to this isn't there." Coper starts interrogating.

"Dude, does it even matter." Kirito says as he lets his head hit the table.

"It does if you're still hanging on to it." Coper says. Kirito sighs.

"If you have to think about it, you have not felt it." Coper says. "I want a sandwich." Coper states.

"This place doesn't have the best but their soup is pretty damn good." Kirito states to get his mind off of his current situation.

"I guess that makes up for it." Coper says right after the waitress comes back with Coper's tea and Kirito's Soup.

"You ordered food without me." Coper says trying to act hurt but reallys just sounds sarcastic.

"You'll get over it." Kirito says as he engulfs his mouth with delicious soup. "It's not like we're dating." Kirito chuckles.

"Sir, would you like to order some food?" The NPC asks Coper.

"No thanks." Coper says waving off the waitress.

"And you didn't even order any." Kirito adds.

"Shut up." Coper says annoyed. "So what are you going to do?" Coper asks Kirito.

"You really think that soup is going to change my mind." Kirito says rhetorically.

"I don't know food can have some persuasive qualities." Coper states. "I deduce that you need to take your mind off of things." Coper says.

"I deduce that you sound dumb." Kirito says back.

"Right back at you." Coper says. "So how was your day." Coper says casually.

"Oh you know just the usual just your friend kind of tell you she loves you even though you have practically known the entire time, oh and I lost my sword." Kirito says casually and sarcastically.

"You didn't lose your sword." Coper states.

"Mate that thing is as good as gone." Kirito laughed out.

"So you lied to her." Coper states.

"Let bygones be bygones." Kirito says.

"She's not going to think that way." Coper states. "I think you should at least give her a chance, at least you don't have to get a new sword." Coper suggests.

"I guess." Kirito sighs.

"Just think about how much she has changed your life." Coper says.

"She did practically make me meet you." Kirito states.

"Really, never told me about that day." Coper says.

"So do you want to hear the long story or the overview?" Kirito asks to get his mind off of things.

"You know I am practically no lifing a game at the moment, so the long story please." Coper says jokingly.

XXXX

Thank you all for reading this chapter

Hope you all have a great weekend

Before you kill me this does not mean it won't be a Asuna X Kirito ending

Next Chapter will be out next Sunday


	9. Sunrise

-Flashback-

Kazuto takes his Nervegear off his head and looks at the time, 2 am.

"Going to spend my day with a friend." Kazuto's words replay in his head. He sighs as he places the Nervegear on his desk.

"Well we'll see how mad she gets." Kazuto chuckles to himself as he replays the events that had recently taken place inside SAO.

After some contemplating and thinking about what he's going to do Kazuto falls asleep.

XXXX

"Kazuto, I'm going to practice!" Suguha shouts waking up Kazuto. Kazuto hears the door close without his response as per usual.

Kazuto looks over at his clock, 6:24.

"Damit." Kazuto thinks as he springs out of his bed and starts to get dressed as fast as humanly possible at least for a thirteen year old. Then Kazuto sprints out of his front door to his bike then immediately turns around and flies back into his room.

"Better not forget you." Kazuto thinks as he slings his backpack over his shoulder then dashes back to his bike.

"Only if I had my license, I could ride a motorized version of this." Kazuto thinks as he swings his leg over the bike and starts petaling.

XXXX

Kazuto arrives at his destination and raise to knock on the door in front of him but stops.

"Is three knocks too much, two knocks, two knocks is good." Kazuto thinks to himself.

Kazuto knocks on the door twice but then does one extra.

"Shit, shit, shit, she'll think I'm weird, quick regain your self." Kazuto thinks to himself.

"Asada." Kazuto says quickly.

"Who is it?" Asada asks from the other side.

"Kirigaya." Kazuto answers her. "May I come in?" Kazuto tries to say softly and respectfully.

"Um, sure I guess." Shino says shyly as she opens up her door to her little apartment.

"Thank you." Kazuto says as he bows to Shino.

"Sooo, what do you want?" Shino asks him.

"I… was wondering if I could walk you to school." Kazuto says shyly as he looks down at his feet.

"Um why did you come this early?" Shino asks him.

"What what times is it?" Kirito studders as he looks at Shino. She has on blue pajamas that were obviously too big for her but he had tried to keep his eyes from her cleavage. Her hair was disheveled and she was barefoot.

"It's 6:46." Shino acknowledges.

"Really, I bike fast with motivation." Kazuto thinks to himself. "I must have lost track of time, did I come at a bad time?" Kazuto asks.

"Uh, no just let me get ready." Shino says as she grabs her clothes and enters her bathroom with the door closing behind her.

Kazuto sighs. He starts to look around Shino's apartment. He sees a microwave and a stove for the small kitchen. The stove looks like it had never been used or hadn't been used in a while. The microwave was infact the opposite, it seems like it had been used recently as well as it was also displaying time.

He turns his attention to the room next to the kitchen. As he passed from the tiled kitchen onto the wood floor he saw he was still wearing his shoes.

"Oh shit." Kazuto thinks as he runs over to the entrance and swiftly takes off his shoes.

"Is everything okay?" Shino asks from the bathroom.

"Yeah." Kazuto reassures her as he walks back into to her "Bedroom".

He looks around until he sees her desk. Underneath the desk was a computer. Almost immediately after he saw it he walk over and kneeled down to get a better look.

"The monitor hasn't worked in a couple of weeks." Shino tells Kazuto.

In response to this Kazuto turns head around to see a beauty. Shino was wearing the school uniform of white grey and red. The school uniform consisted of a button up shirt and tie with a jacket a short skirt. All Kazuto could think about was how cute she was.

"I could take a look over it after school." Kazuto says right after he stops staring. "I built my computer in elementary school." Kazuto states.

"Sure." Shino says happily. In response Kazuto grins. "You ready to leave?' Shino asks him.

"Yeah." Kazuto says as he picks up his backpack and walks through the door.

On the way there the talk about life as well as what Shino can expect at her new school while Kazuto to hopes that their talk doesn't go into awkwardness or that he will embarrass himself. They get to school and split up to head to their first period class.

Kazuto gets to his class and falls into his seat. As soon as he gets in his seat he runs his hand through his hair to find out that his hair was surprisingly wet.

"Hope she didn't notice, was I really that stressed…" Kazuto thinks but gets interrupted by the start of class. He becomes a wall flower for the rest of the day until last period, when he and Shino were in the same class.

"Hey." Kazuto tries to act casually.

"Hey." Shino says as she sits down in her seat.

"S…" Kazuto begins to say but gets interrupted by the bell. Throughout the whole entire period he tries and fails to get a single word out.

The last bell of the day goes off and Kazuto stands up and starts to pack up until a girl and her two friends who he had recently learned the name of confronts Shino.

"Hey Shino, we're friends right." Endou says. "So if we ever need any help you would help us out right?' Endou continues. "For now, twenty thousand yen will do." She finishes.

"Hey!" Kazuto shouts as he gets in front of Shino. "Back off." Kazuto demands them.

"But we're doing nothing wrong." Endou tries to say it innocently but comes off as annoying.

"Please just leave." Kazuto says while trying to stay calm.

"Bang." Endou says as she and her friend leave.

In response to this Shino falls almost immediately. Kazuto rushes over to her and attempts to comfort her. As soon as he touched he felt all of the pain that she was feeling.

"I'm sorry." Kazuto said to her. "Should I get the teacher?" Kazuto asks her softly.

"..." Shino remains silent until she muster up the courage to say five words.

"Could you walk me home?" Shino asks Kazuto shyly and quietly.

As Kazuto helps her up he says, "Sure."

XXXX

Thank you all for reading this chapter

Hope you all have a great rest of the weekend

I am introducing a male OC soon and well I can't think of an in game name, if you like to name my first OC PM or review

The next chapter will be out next Sunday


	10. Stump

-Flashback Continues-

Kazuto helps Shino up then immediately picks up her backpack.

"You don't have…" Shino whispers

"I want to." Kazuto says. "Do you need help?" Kazuto asks Shino after he sees that she hasn't started to move.

"Y…" Shino started to say yes but stops when she realizes that Kazuto is carrying everything.

In response to this Kazuto walks back over to her and his arm around her and says, "You can lean on me."

In any other scenario she would have have freaked out or would have been embarrassed but in result of Endou she was vulnerable. Even though she was vulnerable Kazuto did not even think about taking advantage of her. He was soft and understanding.

Without even a moment for hesitation Kazuto and Shino had began their journey back to Shino's house. This walk was riddled with a lot less talking and as well as Kazuto stress levels were almost non existent. Throughout the whole walk he lets Shino use him as aid for her walking.

Once they got to her apartment Kazuto had laid her down in her bed.

"Their you go." Kazuto says to Shino. "Should I leave?" Kazuto asks her.

"... Could you take a look at my computer?" Shino asks shyly.

"Oh yeah sure I can take a look at it." Kazuto says as he walks over to her computer. "Which part didn't work again?" Kazuto asks her.

"The monitor, doesn't really show anything." Shino states.

"Really." Kazuto says. He starts to search through his brain for what could be wrong but only finds more questions.

"Do you have a screwdriver?" Kazuto finally asks Shino. Secretly he kinda hopes she doesn't so he has a reason to come back another day.

"I think so." Shino says as she lifts her head off the pillow and starts to walk into the kitchen. Shino squats as she starts to shuffle around in some off her lower cabinets. As a result her school skirt started to rise up her.

Kazuto turns around and looks down to see Shino squatting and... , "NO." Kazuto thinks to himself. "You must not, you were taught better than that." Kazuto things to himself as he quickly turns around and shoves his attention back into searching for a screwdriver.

"Found it." Shino tells Kazuto.

"Really." Kazuto says slightly dumbfounded.

"What you didn't expect someone like me to have one." Shino says accusingly.

"That's not what I meant." Kazuto says jokingly as he takes the screwdriver from her hand. He takes the screwdriver and starts to disassemble the monitor.

"Hey do you want some food?" Shino says from the kitchen.

"Sure." Kazuto says hesitantly. Kazuto hopes that it would be another day where is aunt doesn't worry about him not being there for dinner.

"Is noodles good for you?" Shino asks Kazuto.

"Sure." Kazuto yells from her bedroom as he pulls the back off the monitor. Kazuto hear's the beeps of the microwave which indicates that his assumation was correct. He continues to think while putting his years of computer knowledge into his attempt to see what's wrong.

A little while later Shino walks into her bedroom sits down at her coffee table with the noodles, "Hey the noodles are ready."

Kazuto turns around and sits down at her table.

"Do you know what's wrong?" Shino asks him.

"Yeah, I think it's the graphics card, but I can't be sure."Kazuto states. "I could test out an extra I have?" Kazuto states.

"I guess." Shino says as she stares at her food. "Thank you." She adds shyly.

"No problem." He says as he slurps up some noodles.

"So, so when do you have to go home?" Shino asks while stuttering.

"Huh?" Kazuto says as he takes his spoon out of his mouth. "Oh, um, I think I could leave soon." Kazuto says awkwardly.

"C…" Shino starts to speak but her words fade out.

"What." Kazuto says after a couple moments of silence.

"Nothing." Shino says hastily.

"Okay." Kazuto says as his phone vibrates. "Kazuto where are you?" Is the question that appears on his screen.

"Um, sorry I need to go." Kazuto says as he picks up his backpack and leaves leaving Shino with a confused look on her face.

XXXX

Kazuto throws his bag into his room as he closes his door.

"You're to be home at 5 until further notice." His Aunt's words still echoed in his head. "You're not my mom." Kazuto thinks as he unlocks his window and feels the breeze. He turns back around to look into his room, the room of a gamer.

"No time better to power level." Kazuto thinks as he locks his door and puts his nervegear on his head.

"Link start." Kazuto says quietly but angrily.

Kirito appears in the town where he was last.

"I'm not Kazuto, I'm Kirito." Was Kirito first thoughts in the virtual world. He starts to turn around and head out but gets blindsided by boy his age.

"Oops, sorry." The boy says hastily. "I'm Coper." Coper states as he extends his arm to Kirito.

"Kirito." Kirito states as he takes Coper's hand. "Hey, you up to power level?" Kazuto asks.

"It's not like I have anything better to do." Coper states.

"Right." Kirito says as the start to walk out of the town.

XXXX

"Well you know the rest." Kirito states to Coper.

"Did you seriously have to give me the play by play." Coper says while being kind of annoyed.

"It's not like you have a life." Kirito states.

"That's a low blow mate." Coper says.

"You're a low blow." Kirito retorts.

"Now do you know what you're going to do now?" Coper asks.

"Firstly I am going to steal your sword." Kirito says swiftly as he grabs Coper's sword.

"He-" Coper gets interrupted.

"Don't worry you'll get it back by the end of the day." Kirito finishes.

"But." Coper tries to rebuttal.

"You'll get it back by the end of tomorrow." Kirito states. "Secondly I am going to go to the second boss raid." Kirito finishes.

"So that's where you were at." Coper says once he puts two and two together.

"Yeah Diavel asked me for help in assembling the next boss raid." Kirito states.

"So are you not going to talk to her." Coper says.

"Not yet." Kirito states with his whole head behind his decision.

"She is going to be indefinitely pissed at you." Coper states.

"Yea…, I need time to recollect myself, and well fighting is the best for me." Kirito states as he stands up from the table.

XXXX

Thank you for reading this chapter

Hope you all have a great rest of the weekend

Next Chapter should be out shortly


	11. Temp

December 13, 2022

-Sinon-

Sinon sits up from her bed with the events from yesterday's meeting still in her head. The raid is going to take place in about two hours. So to prepare for the events that would transpire she starts to flip through her menu to prepare.

She goes through all of her gear finishing her armor before going to set her weapons.

She starts scrolling through her daggers but stops after she sees the first one, The Shadow Stiletto. After seeing this she stops her operation.

"Why, why did Kazuto do this?" Sinon asks herself as his gift materializes in her hand.

"Did it make him mad." She questions herself.

"How do I even know he's Kazuto, for all I know he could be his long lost twin." Sinon chuckles to herself at the idea.

"Yeah, that sounds right." Sinon tries to reason with herself. This however doesn't work as his last words to her return to her.

"It's better for you not to be with a beater like me." Those words, Kirito's, No Kazuto's words echoed through her head the words fueled her with enough anger for her to have her knife, Kirito's gift get thrown into the wall across from her.

As the knife flue through the air her eyes followed it all the way until it hit the wall. The thing that appeared would change her perspective on everything. A purple hexagon appeared on the wall with the words Immortal object in the center.

As the knife hit the ground she had a realization, that the death game she was in could claim anyone at any moment. In response to this her eyes and head drop to face directly at her feet which were dangling off the edge of the bed.

"I owe it to him, to myself, to remember what I am fighting for. " Sinon thinks as she picks up the knife off of the floor. She immediately puts the knife into her inventory and thinks, "Well it's time to go by a new knife."

XXXX

"Hey Sinon." Kirito says as he walks up to her.

"Hey." Sinon says calmly but full of resentment.

"May I join your party?" Kirito asks,

"I thought it would be better for me not to be with a beater like you." Sinon says coldly.

"Please." Kirito says while bowing.

"Sure." Sinon gives up easily but almost immediately turns arounds, shrugging him off.

"Well I am glad that she has gotten over it, Asuna on the other hand." Kirito thinks.

XXXX

"I have one thing to say before we enter." Diavel starts in front of the grand boss room doors. "Let's win." He says as he raises his sword into the air. In response almost everyone starts to cheer as they open up the doors into the second floor boss room.

Once they enter the room they see the boss, Gahiji, Ferocious One. Gahiji was a monkey gorilla hybrid with no weapons until he gets to his last health bar. Once he got to his last health he will pull out a maul or at least that's what the beta testers knew. The book also said that Gahiji had the strength of a gorilla and the mobility of a monkey but was gigantic.

"Squad A attack head on, squad B defend squad A, squad C, D flank left, squad E, F cover them, and squad G get behind it." Diavel shouts as the battle is about to commence.

"Let's go King Kong." The man next to Sinon says before running at the beast. Sinon, a part of squad F falls back and starts throwing throwing picks at Gahiji. Kirito was in squad A. This time Diavel had made squads, unlike the first boss battle when their parties decided it. All it decided now was loot and xp.

The boss battle was successful for Gahiji's first two health bars. Gahiji had three but had incredible strength and mobility. It had completely stop squad G's attack almost as quickly as it started. During this time not a single player had been killed but two had been seriously injured.

Gahiji pounded its chest right after it hit its last health bar. In response everyone dashed into attack Gahiji as this was the plan but Gahiji pulled out his maul.

After he pulled out his weapon they all felt as though there was a short period of time where everything stopped. During this time every player examined the bosses weapon. It was as long as Gahiji. At the end was a solid metal head easily quadruple the size of even the biggest of players.

But this didn't stop the players, they still charged in at Gahiji from all sides. In response to his inevitable end in the position he was in he used the mobility he gain from his monkey traits and jumps over all of the players, well all but squad F who were standing behind everyone else.

Gahiji lands on top of the player next to Sinon.

"Shit!" Sinon says as the force of Gahiji's landing knocks her and her fellow squad mates off their feet. Sinon starts to get up as she sees the shards of a player explode.

"Gulp." Sinon was frozen in fear. She stays there laying on the ground frozen from terror.

"Move!" A man screams as he pushes her out of the way of Gahiji's maul. But the man wasn't so lucky. The maul pinned down his right arm.

Sinon's savor stood up from the devastating blow. He points at Gahiji and grins. "Let's go King Kong." He says as he starts to run at the boss.

"Stop!" Kirito shouts. "You can't fight at half health." Kirito continues.

As he is listening to them shout at him he swivels around Gahiji's first swing at him. It was obvious that Gahiji's maul was just a deadly extension of his arm though his sword skills or hammer skills in this case weren't anything special. But with his reach being that large you'd be crazy to enter his range. Good thing that they had someone who was crazy.

Directly after dodging Gahiji's maul the reckless man jumps off the ground and propels himself into the air, but there's only one thing that everyone sees.

"Why is his sword still sheathed?" This thought ran through all of the players minds.

As soon as he got up to the boss's neck he pulled out his katana with wicked speed. It was at the last split second that he pulled out his katana which already had a sword skill activated and unleashed a 7 hit combo in the blink of an eye shattering the boss.

XXXX

Here's the second chapter this Sunday because School was a lot more laid back this week

Hope this eases all of your minds

Okay now the next chapter will be out next Sunday

Have a great day


	12. Tenacity

December 14th, 2022

-Sinon and Kirito-

Both of them stared in awe from seeing the man solo the boss in just one fell swoop.

All of the players started clapping until well dejavu hit them. Kibaou was the first to respond to this.

"Stop clapping." Kibaou yelled again. "He's just another beater." Kibaou continues. "No he's even worse than a beater he's a goddamn cheater I mean no one has even seen an overpower skilled like that." Kibaou exclaims.

"I don't what you're talk about there." The so called cheater starts to speak. "Beater is the combination of beta tester and a cheater and well the last time I checked b the came before the ter." The man says as he his last attack bonus materializes in his hands. It was a katana or more specifically, it was the Incarnated Iron Tachi. "Next time actually make it an insult." He finishes as he equips the sword on his belt.

Kibaou stands there defeated once again.

After seeing Kirito chuckles, nothing is better than seeing Kibaou defeated and helpless even if it wasn't because of him.

"I don't remember him." Diavel thinks to himself. During the beta he had tried to be friends with as many people as possible unlike many other gamers. Good thing he had used a different user name for the release. Everyone knew that he was practically the one holding everything together.

He turns around and walks towards the door leaving the players in awe. But Sinon had to do something,right? I mean the man did just save her life.

Sinon runs up to catch up to the man and says, "Hey wait up."

The man turns his around and says "Ha sorry, I am planning on playing this one solo just don't go out and kill yourself."

"At least let me thank you." Sinon barters.

"No need, it was easy enough to save you." He states.

"You lost half your health." Sinon exclaims.

"It's better than you dying." He says as he turns around and starts his walk again.

"Please, just let me buy you lunch." Sinon says.

"...Okay." He says finally giving up.

"I'm Sinon by the way." Sinon states.

"Tito resident cheater." He says as the walk out.

Kirito would be on the edge of his seat if he was sitting down. He almost took off at mach speed to join them but something stopped him. He had realized that Sinon, No Shino could have died right there and he was on bad terms with some people. Also he would have to thank her savior. But firstly he would have to go and make things right even if his feelings weren't on her calibur.

XXXX

"This restaurant looks like a good place to eat." Tito says while standing in front of it.

"Let's go in." Shino says as she walks in.

They sit down and Sinon finale gets a good like at Tito. He was to her guess around 20 21 years old with dark brown hair. He was a fair bit taller than Sinon with hazel eyes. His face looked calm and no over defining features.

"Hello?" Tito says in response to what he thinks is Sinon spacing out.

"What." SInon says once she comes back to earth.

"You spaced out, am I that handsome." Tito says jokingly. In response to this Sinon face almost immediately red. "Just trying to make conversation." Tito says awkwardly.

The waitress walks over and starts asking for their orders which in turn eases their situation.

"So..." Tito says awkwardly.

"I must say thank you again." Sinon says while slightly tilting her head down.

"Like I said it was nothing really." Tito response to her.

They sit through wait for their food with small talk with with a little bit of jokes added in.

Tito sees the food coming towards them. He claps his hands together and says, "Free food."

They get their food and without hesitation they begin eating.

"That was good." Sinon says as she finishes her last bite.

"You can only imagine what S-class ingredients would taste like." Tito says.

"What." Sinon says.

"Oh nothing, well I'll be leaving." Tito states as he stands up.

"Wait." SInon says hastily while standing up.

"I'm sorry but I intend on doing things that I don't think anyone besides me would do." Tito states.

"No I am coming with you." Sinon. "I can't let another person go off on their own." Sinon thinks to herself.

"I can't let you or anyone less head into danger if I can help it." Tito says with his heart in every word.

"So what you're going to take it all?" Sinon asks.

"Yes." He says as he starts to scroll through his menu.

"Your skills will only get you so far." Sinon rebuttals.

"You only saw a thin slice of the cake." Tito states as he finds what he was searching for.

"What if you die, no one will know." SInon says.

Tito starts to think about what he is protecting and says, "Okay, but I won't slow down." Some of his cols appear on the table.

"I was going to pay." Sinon says trying to sound a little disappointed.

"No need besides it's customary for the man to pay." Tito says. "You ready to grind?" He asks Sinon.

"I don't intend on slowing you down." Sinon says as she holds out her hand.

"Lets beat this game then." Tito says as shakes her hand.

XXXX

They go out into the fields with their armor equipped. The enemies that they see were the Kobolds from the first boss battle.

"You ready?" Sinon asks knowing the answer.

"To grind." Tito says as he runs out into the field. Sinon takes out her new knife as she watches Tito grind… without his sword or skills. She sees Tito unleash his martial art skill on the Kobolds.

After killing a Kobold another starts to strike him from behind. In response to this Tito jumps over the Kobold and doing a flip in midair. Then he uses knife hand to jab the Kobold. This normally would have hurt Tito but he had equipped gauntlets to protect himself. The gauntlets were very stiff but it was a low tier armor piece so he was alright for him at the moment.

Sinon stares in awe.

"Even without skills he super strong." Sinon thinks. She thinks back to her conversation with him in the restaurant. "What were you thinking about back then." She asks herself.

"Hey Sinon, come on." Tito says looking back at and waving his hand.

She takes out her new knife, The Shadow Strike and runs into the field of Kobolds with one thought in mind, "Who is this guy?"

XXXX

Thank you all for reading this chapter

The next chapter should be out shortly

Hope you all have a great rest of the weekend

Also if you have any Idea's you would like to see PM and I'll take it under consideration


	13. Tumble

December 15, 2022

-Kirito and Coper-

"So man up." Coper says mockingly after Kirito tells him about the boss raid.

"Shut up." Kirito says annoyed.

"So does that mean I can finally have my sword back?" Coper says.

"Here." Kirito says as he hands over the blade.

"Good luck." Coper says.

"I'll need it." Kirito says as he leaves for probably one of the hardest conversations in his life.

XXXX

"Hey Asuna." Kirito says casually and slowly. He had found her in the market of floor two.

"Hey Kirito." Asuna says as her whole entire body lights up. "It's been three days, you said you'd be back soon." Asuna states as she runs up to him.

"I recall nothing of the sorts." Kirito says while keeping himself prepared for the line of fire that might come his way.

"You implied it." Asuna says as she hugs Kirito.

In response to this Kirito's body immediately stiffens as they start to attract attention.

"How about we take this somewhere private, I have a inn rented out on floor three." Kirito states.

"They beat the boss?" Asuna says stunned. She did expect them to beat the boss within this year but this soon stunned her.

"I, they had found the boss room fairly quickly this time." Kirito states, covering up the beginning of his statement.

"Oh, okay, wait how do you know this?" Asuna questions him after she had the realization.

"... Diavel asked me to help him with the raid groups." Kirito says defending himself. "Should we head to my room?" Kirito says hastily to change the subject.

"Sure." Asuna says as she follows Kirito.

XXXX

They enter Kirito's room and Asuna immediately sees that Kirito was trying to save money or at least make the room look like him. The room was small only housing a single small bed. Within the room was also an end table and a chair. Off the main room was bathroom and that was it.

"Make yourself at home." Kirito says as he takes of his coat and sword.

"This is a little small isn't it." Asuna says as she takes off her breastplate and rapier.

"It's good enough." Kirito says.

"No it's not enough, I can't fit in here." Asuna starts to say but doesn't get past the first word. But unfortunately for her it attracts Kirito's attention.

"What?" Kirito asks.

"Nothing." Asuna says abruptly. "So what were you doing?" Asuna asks to change the subject.

"Oh just clearing my mind." Kirito says truthfully. He would never tell her that he went to the boss raid because well that was a fight he wasn't going to win.

"Soo."Asuna says as she starts to walk close to Kirito. She always wanted a man who was strong both physical and mental. As far as she had seen he had never lacerated at her or anyone. As for physical his strength was unmatchable, at least for virtual reality which was their reality at the current moment. She had also always wanted to find her man since her mom's suiters weren't exactly on par with her personality.

Kirito bites his lip. He knows exactly what Asuna had planned and well he wasn't exactly on board with her plan. She was great, no perfect in almost every single way. He could imagine that either way this conversation went it could come back and bite him in the ass. He wasn't ready for, whatever it was. Being the unsocial 14 year old gamer he was, he only had interacted with a couple of girls in his life. Besides for the girls that ignored him or got ignored by him there was his cousin and Shino.

"Maybe I could." Kirito thinks to himself. "I mean she does seem like she is rich so on the of chance, No that's not love that's extortion." Kirito bickers with himself.

"The last time I had tried it didn't work." Asuna thinks to herself. "In fact I scared him off, maybe a more subtle approach." She schemes with herself.

"So let's duel." Asuna says to Kirito.

"What." Kirito says dumbfounded.

"You know swing sword, try to hit opponent." Asuna says mockingly. "If I win we party up, if you win you can do whatever pleases you." Asuna states

"Oh okay, there is a field on this floor, we could duel there." Kirito states.

"Sure let's go ahead." Asuna says.

XXXX

Asuna sends the duel request to Kirito and one thought popped into his head, "Is she trying to kill me?"

Kirito betrays these thoughts by accepting the duel. The mode they had selected was first to half hp.

Kirito looks up at Asuna knowing that even if he loses concentration at any point she could take advantage of it. The fact that they were standing about 20 feet away from each other didn't help. Through the month of training and grinding together he had learn that Asuna was quite possibly the fastest player in the game. He could never hope to achieve the speed that she had.

It also didn't help that they each knew each other, attack strategies and all. All Kirito has to do was avoid her first onslaught of attacks and then strike.

"If I beat him then maybe he will see me as an equal." Asuna thinks to herself as the countdown hits zero.

Kirito immediately holds his sword out diagonally with the end pointed up in a defensive stance.

Unlike Kirito, Asuna quickly uses her speed to start to launch her attack at Kirito.

In response Kirito jumps backwards in order to give himself more time to think. But Asuna doesn't let up, she continues at him and once she got close enough she unleashes her sword skill with its target being Kirito's chest.

With almost no time to think Kirito blocks Asuna's Wind Fleuret with his Anneal blade knocking it off to the side.

The rapier that she had reminded him of why he had left them in the first place. "Selfish selfish." Kirito thinks to himself. Then he sees her face. Apart from how beautiful she was he could tell there was more at stake. or that she just really wanted to be in his party, like the I would die if I wasn't in your party look. The look that Asuna was giving off had seemed like she was trying to prove something. Or at least that's what Kirito saw.

In response the Kirito successful block Asuna jumped back expecting Kirito to swing but Kirito does nothing of the sorts. In fact he does exactly what Asuna did, he also jumped back.

"If I forfeit or throw the match, I don't think she will be satisfied with that result." Kirito thinks.

With this new realization under his belt he dashes at Asuna. His speed may not be at Asuna's power level but it was still formidable.

Asuna was immediately taken aback from this. She expected herself to do most of the attacking and for Kirito to counter her attacks. But this had completely taken her off guard to the point where she was backing away.

Kirito had gotten close enough to Asuna to swing at her. He swung at her putting all of his weight into the attack. Asuna barely has enough time to think much less block but she pulls it off. She would have been good if it weren't for one small detail, rapiers aren't made to block. She was easily disarmed by Kirito.

"No not yet." Asuna thinks to herself as she does something only a crazy person would do. She grabs Kirito's blade which completely catches him off guard and pushes it into him depleting his health to less than half while also having the blade cut deeply into her hands.

The icons above their head indicate that Asuna won.

"Welcome to Party Beaters, featuring the original beater." Kirito says as he sends the request to Asuna.

"Thank you." Asuna says as she accepts the request.

"We would like to welcome our new member, The Flash." Kirito says jokingly.

XXXX

Thank you all for reading this Chapter

Hope you have enjoyed the story so far

If you have any ideas you would like to see implemented, just shoot me a PM

Have a great day


	14. Tucked

December 23, 2022

-Sinon and Tito-

Sinon and Tito were crawling up the dungeon on floor three. The dungeon that at the end of it had the floor boss. They had been walking and mapping the area for hours now.

"So why did you buy SAO?" Tito asks in an attempt to break the silence that hovered over them.

"I don't know I guess I just wanted to escape the real world." Sinon lied. She had knew why she had gotten the nervegear, and the game even if she didn't want to admit it.

"Hey you did a pretty sufficient job at doing that." Tito says humorously.

"Yea I guess, so what about you?" Sinon asks Tito.

"I had gotten this game as a gift." Tito starts. "And well one of the best gifts ever yet one of the worst ones ever." Tito says trying to to add some humor but it comes out dry. But he had sounded like he had concealed something inside is words.

"...Is that it?" Sinon asks hesitantly while looking down at her feet. After a few moments of silence she looks and sees something that she would have never expect to see in a million years, Tito was crying.

"Darn game, why can't I hide away my emotions?" Tito asks while sniffing the whole way through.

"Even if you were to cry a single tear the game has it programmed that we just straight up cry a waterfall." Sinon tells Tito. This was one of the few things that she had learned in the time that she had spent in Aincrad.

"I'd rather not talk about it." Tito says as he wipes tears of his face. He runs ahead of Sinon but almost immediately stops.

"That's the boss room door, right?" Sinon asks as she looks up at the grand door.

"I think so." Tito says as he walks up to it.

"Tito what are you doing?" Sinon asks him.

"Going into the boss room." Tito answers Sinon.

"NO, you're going to get yourself killed." Sinon yells at him.

"So what we wait another day or two for a raid group." Tito rebuttals.

"At least you won't die." Sinon says softly.

"I can't just sit here and wait for someone else to get us out." Tito says. "I have to make it up to her." Tito says under his breath so know one would hear.

Sinon looked at the back head of Tito's after hearing what he had just stunned her. This left her immobilized for Tito's next movements.

Tito had pushed open the doors and had already ran into face, Eladamri The First Werewolf. But the thing was Tito was facing a human not a werewolf. Or should I say a giant.

Eladamri was easily ten times the size of the average human. Luckily, Eladamri was only equipped with a two handed long sword.

Tito sheaths his sword before he starts to run at the boss.

"No, Tito you'll die!" Sinon screams right after she came to her senses.

"I'll only die if I mess up." Tito states as runs at the boss.

Eladamri swings his sword sideways to stop Tito's advancement. Tito jumps back and barely avoids the attack.

Sinon realizes that she won't to be able to knock the sense back into Tito so she takes out her Shadow strike and falls back to hopefully protect by throwing her knife. Instead of immediately throwing her Shadow strike she holds off, her attack would be more useful in a time of need.

After dodging Eladamri's attack Tito runs straight at him. But Eladamri immediately counters by thrusting his long sword directly at Tito. Tito, caught off guard he immediately blocks the attack with his gauntlets. But this did not go as he had intended, not only does he get thrown back to the entrance his right gauntlet also breaks.

"Let's fall back while we can." Sinon states to Tito.

"NO, I can do this." Tito response while he gets up from his fall.

"You can't, you just nearly died." Sinon rebuttals.

"You can't tell me what I can and cannot do!" Tito yells as he runs back in.

Sinon's eyes follow his and Eladamri's movements as they dance. Not only was she grateful for the boss's restricted aggro she notices that there was no ceiling, instead she had a great view of the orange sky.

Sinon looks back down to see Tito activate his sword skill once again. She watched as he chained hit after hit after hit with mastery.

"How is he so strong?" Sinon asks herself.

Luckily Tito had managed to get really close to the boss so he could pull off all seven of his strikes. This took out one bar of Eladamri's health, that being one fourth of his health. But Eladamri had jumped back to get away from Tito.

"Tito!" Sinon yells as she runs up to him after she had a realization. The boss was named Eladamri, The First Werewolf yet it was an average human. This may be just a speculation but once the moon appears in the sky it would transform into a werewolf.

"Don't try to convince me to fall back!" Tito yells as he continues to run at the boss. But his assault is stopped before it had even started. He could see Eladamri start to transform to what he think is hopefully his final form. But Tito didn't let this happen without getting at least one of his sword skills off. He runs up to Eladamri and unleashes his seven hit combo once again on the boss. The saving grace this time was that his combo depleted the boss of half of his health.

But Eladamri didn't have any of this, as he transformed into his werewolf form he hit Tito all the way back to the entrance. Then his transformation had been finished. His head had turn in a wolf head, his hands were enhanced with claws. And finally he slouches really bad.

"Tito, wait." Sinon says. "Get above it, should have a massive blind spot there." Sinon states as she points above the boss's head.

"And what get past that monstrosity of a head." Tito says.

"Leave it to me." Sinon says confidently.

They both start to execute their plan. Tito runs at the boss with his left arm out in front of him and his sword sheathed. Once he got close enough the boss he jumped up to try to get on top of him.

Eladamri had seen what they were doing and in response to this he had striked Tito with his claw. But Tito had other things in mind. Tito had blocked Eladamri's advancement with his left gauntlet. Like last time his gauntlet shattered but unlike last time he didn't get thrown back.

At the time this was happening Sinon was waiting for a perfect shot at the boss's head. But all of her lines of sight were distorted by either Tito or his shattered gauntlet. Her time was also limited, but as the blue shards disappeared she saw a line of sight to about the perfect place, Eladamri's eye.

After Sinon sees her light of sight start to take its form without a second to spare she throws her knife directly at the boss's eye.

"Thanks." Tito thinks as he sees the knife hit Eladamri's eye. Flawlessly, Tito maneuvers himself over the werewolf's head onto the it's back. Once on top the boss's back he unleashes a 16 hit sword combo from his sheathed sword.

Tito lands on the ground surrounded by millions of blue shards and his last attack bonus item, The Oak Flatbow.

"What was the bonus?" Sinon asks as she runs up to him.

"Oh, nothing useful." Tito lies as she puts the bow in his inventory.

XXXX

Thank you all for reading this Chapter

The next chapter should be out shortly

Have a great weekend!


	15. Tribute

December 24, 2022

-Kirito and Argo-

"Argo, come on." Kirito said pleading.

"No, I'm not going to give you that information." Argo said calmly.

"Come on, I'll give you 10000 col." Kirito barters.

"NO, you're going to kill yourself." Argo says trying to end the conversation

"Come on, I'll try to get Diavel to friend you." KIrito continues to barter.

"What, why would I want that?" Argo asks trying to sound confuzed

"Don't act like I don't know what you're doing." Kirito scolds her. "I know you're friending every beta tester you can." Kirito acknowledges.

"NO I'm not!" Argo defends herself. "Why would you think that?" Argo asks.

"I mean seriously who friends Coper, the guys first impression on me involved killing me." Kirito states.

"Well you got me there." Argo says.

"So can I have the information now?" Kirito asks.

"Yes but under one request." Argo says.

"Okay." Kirito says thinking it will be something easy like handing out books to people.

"Get Asuna a Christmas Gift." Argo says.

Kirito sighs and asks, "Does that mean I don't have to pay you the col?"

"Haha, fork it over." Argo says.

"God dammit." Kirito says as they exchange info for col.

"Don't forget about Diavel." Argo states.

"Or you'll kill me." Kirito finishes while rolling his eyes.

XXXX

Kirito stood on floor two. He had grown to know a lot about this floor through silence. Since during this floor not only did he have a few days to himself he wasn't with Asuna or Sinon he was with Coper. Though Coper is no doubt the biggest asshole out of his friends he was a nice grinding partner.

During their daily grind sessions that usually lasted for hours on end he was mostly quite quiet. This had surprised him when he found out this because well Coper isn't the most quiet person other wise.

But nevertheless the silence had given him a lot of time to reflect and take in his surroundings.

Unlike most of the other floors he had seen, floor two was a massive savana with one lone tree. This tree was not only the point at which the info Argo gave him pointed to but also was the start of the martial arts skills.

Though he had not dedicated much of any points to the skills yet, Kirito had figure that as the game progressed that they would become important so he unlocked them anyways. But Kirito had a more pressing matter than admiring his surroundings, what was he going to get Asuna?

Thanks to Argo, his col numbers had been cut in half. With that said he was going to have to go for thoughtful not value. "Thanks Argo." Kirito thought. But before he could think about what he was going to do the event boss appeared before his eyes.

Nicholas the Obedient stood before the fourteen year old boy.

Before running at the boss, Kirito says a few words to the saint. "You know what, I was never much of a christian." He tells him.

XXXX

"Divine Crystal of Returning Soul, huh." Kirito says while looking at his spoils from the event boss.

The Crystal looking at it was some type of safety net for death. So after reading it over and over and over again he had figured out what it does specifically. Basically it can create a bond between two players. If the two players are within 50 meters of each other, then if one player were to die then the crystal would be consumed and the player would be brought back to life at 25% health.

But there was one downside, after the bond had been created between two players it cannot be undone.

"Well this would be one hell of a gift." Kirito thinks to himself. "But…" Kirito thinks.

XXXX

"Hey your that guy from the raid." Kirito states as he walks up to Tito.

They were both in the market of floor 4 at one in the morning. Kirito was still trying to decide what to get Asuna.

"Yeah, it's Tito by the way." Tito says as he extends his hand out to Kirito.

"Thank you for saving Sinon." Kirito says as he shakes Tito's hand. "I have a request." Kirito states.

"Shouldn't it be the other way around." Tito says jokingly.

Kirito snickers and says, "Uh yeah, but I was wondering if you could give this to Sinon." Kirito says as he takes out a white scarf.

"Why don't you do it?" Tito asks.

"Yeah, you see-" Kirito starts but gets cut off.

"I don't see but continue." Tito cuts him off.

"We're not the best friends or even acquaintances." Kirito acknowledges.

"Sure but I have one request, don't make her sad again." Tito says as he takes the scarf.

"How is she?" Kirito asks Tito.

"Alright, she is still pissed about you leaving her but she wouldn't admit it." TIto states

Kirito knew that she had multiple reason for her to hate him, even before he had left her. Looking down at his feet Kirito shook his head. "So why are you out here so late?" Kirito asks changing the subject.

"Late night grind, I presume it's same for you?" Tito says.

"Yeah." Kirito lies. "Hey what would you get for a gift to someone?" Kirito asks Tito.

"Get a gift that brings them back to a memory, nothing is better than a good memory." Tito states as he walks away from Kirito.

XXXX

"Asuna." Kirito says after knocking on the door twice

"One second." Asuna says right before opening up the door.

Kirito saw Asuna and he could only think of one word, stunning. Though it wasn't anything fancy it still made his jaw drop. All she was wearing was a sweater and a pair of jeans . But yet again Kirito said that almost to every girl he saw.

"I have a present for you, one sec." Asuna says as she starts to dig through her menu until she finds what she needs.

She pulls a pair of black gloves out of her inventory.

"I had Ashley make them." Asuna states shyly.

"Their amazing." Kirito says as he takes them out of her hands. "And made his gift look like crap." Kirito thought as he held them in his hands.

"Don't tell me you forgot." Asuna says disappointed.

"Uh no, just give me-." Kirito says as he pulls out his gift, a jar cream. "It doesn't have that extra wow factor that…." Kirito starts to say but dies off after he looks at Asuna's face. Her face was just what Kirito wanted to see and more. She was not only happy with her gift, it was bringing her back to that day.

"I didn't come to this town to eat good food." Replayed in Kirito's head.

"Thank you." Asuna says. "That day was pretty great." Asuna states.

"No that day was extraordinary." Kirito says smiling.

XXXX

Thank you all for reading this chapter

Next chapter will be out on Sunday

Hope you all have a great day

I'll be starting backstories soon, i f you have a preferred character than please tell me!


	16. Treat

December 25, 2022

-Sinon and Tito-

"Hey!" Sinon yells over the crowd to Tito. "Where have you been?" Sinon asks as she catches up to Tito in the marketplace of floor four. "You weren't in your room." Sinon states

" I'm restless, so I ran a few errands." Tito says as he continues to walk through the market.

"It's six am, when did you go to sleep?" Sinon asks.

"Eleven, I still have two more errands." Tito says. Though his answer was truthful he didn't stay asleep for long. If he was going to take on another boss he has to be as strong as he can possibly be no matter the consequences.

As he is walking away from her Sinon runs up to him and says, "Just make sure you're not pushing yourself too hard."

"I'd rather be exhausted, than dead." Tito states coldly.

"You'll lead yourself into death with that mindset." Sinon says worriedly. "You're one of Aincrad best bets right now." SInon states.

"Lets not fight today." Tito says quickly.

"What are you afraid I'm right." Sinon says back immediately.

"No, it's Christmas." Tito says as the snow starts to fall for the day.

Sinon looks up towards the sky and sees the first snow that she has seen since she entered Aincrad. This thought coursed through every players mind at least once. But how did Kayaba build something so beautiful yet so hated.

XXXX

"What should we eat?" Tito asks Sinon.

"I don't know." Sinon says as she ponders on the subject.

"How about we go back to that one restaurant on floor three." Tito suggests. "You know for nostalgia purposes." Tito continues.

"Yeah sure, I guess." Sinon says timidly as they teleport to the third floor.

Once they teleport to floor three Sinon sees one person who she thought she didn't want to see, Kirito. But luckily for her Kirito didn't seem like he was paying much attention to his surroundings.

Kirito was much too occupied by the shopkeeper he was talking to.

"So Agil you want me to get word out about your new shop?" KIrito tries and summarizes the last few minutes of their conversation.

"Basically." Agil states.

"So what got you into this business?" Kirito asks as he leans on the counter.

"Earn a few extra col, I don't even have to work that hard these guys will buy anything." Agil states cheerfully.

"Just another perk of this demented game." Kirito says. "So why do you want me to do it?" Kirito asks Agil.

"You're a high level player, and well I like you." Agil says calmly and warmly.

"Well that makes you the first, everyone just thinks I am a filthy beater." Kirito says with disgust.

"It's not like you didn't want that to happen." Agil states.

"Okay you got me there, but seriously people it has been a month how long do you people hold a grudge." Kirito starts to rant off to seemingly no one. "It's Christmas, time for forgiveness and bring people in." Kirito states.

"Have you met this generation, it's all about the presents." Agil state with a slight laugh.

"I guess, but seriously who likes Kibaou?" Kirito asks rhetorically.

During the time that Kirito and Agil were talking about complete and utter randomness, Tito was attempting to coax Sinon over to Agil's shop.

"I need to go find someone before I forget." Tito states as he starts to walk over to Agil's shop.

"Okay, I'll go over to the restaurant." Sinon says hastily so that she can avoid that situation.

"Oh no it wouldn't be a problem if you came with me." Tito states as he motions her over.

"I'm sure you'll be fine on your own." Sinon states as she turns around and quickly walks away.

In response to this Tito immediately runs up to Sinon and grabs her hand, but unluckily for him this was possibly the worst possible thing he could do. Sinon pulls her hand up to her chest as she runs away to the restaurant.

Tito seeing that he failed he walked over to Agil's shop.

"Hey Agil, how's it going?" Tito asks as he walks up to the two men.

"Nothing much." Agil says.

"Here's a person that they probably respect more." Kirito states jokingly.

"Ayeee thanks." Tito says sarcastically. "She's at the restaurant." Tito's states.

"Thanks." Kirito thanks Tito. "Are you sure about this?" Kirito asks him.

"It's now or never." Tito states while giving Kirito a pat on the back.

"Thanks for that." Kirito says confidently as he walks away.

XXXX

As Kirito walks into the restaurant, Sinon looks down in an attempt to conceal herself from Kirito. But this did not work to her dismay. Kirito had a different way of finding her, he asked the host where he could find her.

Kirito walked over to Sinon and she had her eyes obviously looking in a way that would keep her out of Kirito's attention. Unluckily for her she was the only thing that had Kirito's attention.

"Hey Sinon." Kirito says slowly. "How's it g-." Kirito starts but gets abruptly cut off.

"Go away." Sinon says demandingly.

"How's it been." Kirito says dangerously as he takes the chair across from Sinon.

"I told you to go away." Sinon says as she stands up.

"Calm down." A voice says from behind Sinon. "He is my guest." Tito states.

"How dare you." Sinon scolds him.

"Scold me however you want, just give him a chance." Tito says as he walks away.

"I'll have to thank him for that in addition to everything else." Kirito thinks.

"So did you have him help you, or was it vice versa?" Sinon asks.

"He came to me, he said that you had a, well vendetta against me." Kirito states.

"Why did you leave me?" SInon asks Kirito.

"I have to get out of this game so I can set things right in the real world." Kirito states.

"So you made things wrong here, so that you can have the chance to set things right in the real world?' Sinon asks.

"I accepted Tito's offer in order to make things right with you." Kirito counters.

"Then why couldn't I have helped you?" Sinon bombards him.

"... It's my battle, to prove myself." Kirito response.

"So you were selfish." Sinon states.

"I am sorry." Kirito says bowing.

"What was the present for?" Sinon asks.

"Just in case I died I didn't want me to never do anything for you, even if it was just an insignificant knife." Kirito states wholeheartedly.

"Thank you." Sinon says.

"Welcome." Kirito says. "Merry Christmas." Kirito says as he leaves.

XXXX

"Sinon." Tito says as he knocks on Sinon's door.

"Yea." Sinon says as she opens up her Inn door.

"May I come in?" Tito asks.

"Sure." Sinon says as she walks away from the door.

"So how was your talk with Kirito?" Tito asks.

"Good I guess, why did you set me up?'" Sinon asks.

"You had a grudge and for you to get stronger I felt as though you had to make up." Tito states.

"So it was for me." Sinon says.

"Yes, but I have something to give to you." Tito says swiftly changing the subject as he opens up his menu and a box appears in front of him. "Here you go." Tito says as he presents the present to Sinon.

"Thank you." Sinon says as she opens up the gift revealing a white scarf. She had always like scarves but this one was a contrast to the one she had in real life. She had a black one in real life though the white one went with her hair better. But how did he know about this.

"I'm not the one you should be thanking, Kirito asked me to give that to you." Tito states.

"Thank you, Kazuto." Sinon thinks as she equips the scarf.

XXXX

Thank you all for reading this chapter!

The next chapter should be out shortly

Hope you all have a great week and weekend

If you have any idea's PM me and well there is a lot of room for me to put in a requested quest or boss.


	17. Temerity

December 31, 2022

-Sinon-

Sinon exhales and sees the mist come out from her mouth. To keep warmth she pulls her scarf over her face. It was the dead of winter and all but floor two was completely covered in snow.

Sinon was on floor four in the dead of night nothing better than to celebrate the new year by killing some mobs by herself.

As she slashed the oncoming gray wolf she thought about what Tito could be doing. He had said he had something to do then just immediately went off so she couldn't ask or objected his doing.

Though she knew that he probably was doing something pretty important but what? He could be sleeping, he could have a secret girlfriend that he is visiting, or orr, he has friends he's never told me about.

Maybe that last one is a little far fetched but still Sinon could only wonder what he could be doing.

Sinon jumped back and threw her knife at the next wolf. "Only a few more to go." Sinon thought as the wolf exploded into blue shards. She had accepted a quest from the mayor the of town a little while back.

The quest was to get rid of the wolf infestation surrounding the town. It was easy enough, basically just an added perk to her grinding habits.

She picked up her knife off the ground and swiped away the col she earned from her last kill and turned around to see two more wolves.

"Great, this knife doesn't do much good in a two vs one." Sinon thought as she took out a throwing pick. With her throwing pick she threw it at one of the wolves, attracting its aggro. After the wolf had separated itself she threw her Shadow Strike at the wolf with her throwing weapons skill. With that the wolf exploded and the next soon after.

Along with the miscellaneous items that she had retrieved from her last to kills the quest was also completed. Her rewards for completing the quest was, the Furious Ironbark long sword and the Obsidian Warfists along with a fair amount of xp.

"Well it's a little late for that." Sinon says out loud as she puts them into her inventory.

As she walks back to her Inn room she gets a PM. It was from none other than Kirito.

 _Hey Sinon,_

 _So we are throwing a New Year's Eve party and we were wondering if you would like to come. No pressure tho. There is quite a few people here so it wouldn't be too awkward. I'll send you a friend request and then you'll know where we are at._

 _From Kirito_

Immediately after the message Sinon sees the friend request from Kirito pop up.

"Hm, we were together for a month and you never friended me." Sinon thinks right before she hits the yes button.

She looks at her friend list and sees Tito and Kirito.

"Hm, can I really check where people are at with this?" SInon thinks. With her curiosity spiked she looks at Tito's location.

He was at the Town of Beginnings on floor one. Sinon sees this and almost takes out a

teleport crystal from her inventory and teleport to floor one at once, but she holds back.

There must have been a reason that would lead him to go alone and plus she had already accepted Kirito's friend request which would hint to him that she would come.

Sinon looks to the digital clock in her display. It was 11:09.

"Better get there by midnight." Sinon thinks as she starts her walk back to town.

XXXX

 _Knock knock knock_ was what Sinon heard as she knocked on the door. She was on floor two. She was glad that they choose this floor because this floor wasn't snowed over.

Sinon was standing in front of what she think is some type of church. But why would there be a church inside this game. Well I guess the psychopath still wanted religion. But this thought was stop once the door in front of her opened.

"Hey Sinon, you came." Kirito says while opening the door. "Where's Tito, I sent him a message too?" Kirito asks.

"He had something he had to do, or so he tells me." Sinon says while questioning what Tito is doing.

"Don't that get you down, come on in you have to see this." Kirito says while motioning Sinon to come inside. Once inside Sinon sees Klein for the first time since day one with his armed crossed with one of his guild members.

"So they're in a drinking contest, first one to tap out loses." Kirito informs Sinon.

"What did they bet?" Sinon asks Kirito

"500 col." Kirito says with a smirk as he watches the grown men down bottle after bottle.

"Wait you can't get drunk in the game." Sinon says quietly to Kirito.

"Yea, don't tell them though, he's never going to get away from this." Kirito says as he starts to chuckle.

"Kirito." Asuna says ushering him over to her.

Kirito starts to walk then turns around holding out his hand motioning for Sinon to come with him.

Instead of taking his hand Sinon walks past him and over to Asuna and Argo.

"Hey Sinon it's been awhile." Asuna greets Sinon while putting up a fake smile. She didn't want Sinon to be there but she never told Kirito this in hopes that he would just forget to remind her.

"Yea, what have you been up to?" Sinon asks as she takes a seat at their table.

"As of lately grinding." Asuna says suspiciously while looking at Kirito.

"The the mobs, sesh Asuna." Kirito says franticly.

"Wonder what's going on in the that head of yours." Argo says.

"Duces." Kirito says as he leaves them in a flustered state. Kirito walks over to the members of Fuurinkazan(Klein's guild) and Agil. The girls watch as the men break into a fit of laughter as Klein and his drinking partner ask for more drinks for their drinking contest. It seems as though everyone except for them two know that you can't get drunk inside the game.

The girls start to talk but Argo quickly sneaks away over to Kirito, who is still watching the men drink.

"Kirito." Argo says while shaking her head in the direction of an empty corner. Kirito obeys but not without one roll of his eyes.

"You invited Sinon." Argo states once they both get out of earshot of everyone.

"Yes." Kirito answers her implied question.

"Why?" Argo asks.

"I was going to invite Tito and I can't just invite Tito I have to invite Sinon too." Kirito says almost like he had memorized it. Which he basically had though he had thought it would be Asuna who would ask him not Argo. Even though his point had just made was excellent it was vice versa, Kirito had wanted Sinon to come.

"Well have fun with him." Argo says as she walks away from Kirito.

"I a, Oh hi Asuna." Kirito says as he spins around to see Asuna which had completely wrecked his train of thought. "You made my heart skip a beat." Kirito exclaims.

"Why do you have to be soo jumpy?' Asuna asks rhetorically as she playfully punches his arm.

Kirito opens his menu and looks at the time, 0:09. "Well it looks like we missed the countdown." Kirito chuckles.

"Yea, I guess we did, well it's not like we have the fireworks this time." Asuna states while leaning on Kirito's shoulder.

A grin spreads across Kirito's face as the stand there for a couple of minutes too long.

"Well I have to get to bed." Kirito says finally after a couple minutes that would come out of Asuna's dreams.

"Oh come on Kirito it's New Year's." Asuna wines.

"I would but thanks a certain someone has an errand I have to run." Kirito says as he sends a glare over to Argo.

"Well then have a good sleep then." Asuna says as Kirito walks away.

"Thanks." Kirito says as he closes the door behind him. But Asuna wasn't the only one who knew that Kirito had left, Sinon had also seen him leave a proceeds to follow him.

"Kirito!" Sinon says as soon as the door closes behind her.

Kirito turns around to see Sinon in her attire, scarf and all. "I see you got my gift." Kirito says.

"Thanks but I must return the favor." Sinon says as she takes out her Furious Ironbark long sword and hands it over to Kirito. "That's for the knife." She says as he examines the blade.

"Thank you." Kirito says as he sheathes it and puts it away in his inventory.

Sinon then pulls Kirito in for a hug. It wasn't a long one but she could still feel the warmth the emitted off of his virtual body. "That's for the scarf." Sinon says as she ends the hug. Then Sinon snaps back out of her imagination to see Kirito bowing.

"I'm sorry I left you." Kirito says as he continues to bow.

"No need to, you already made that up." Sinon says. She bits her lip and almost starts to speak then second guesses herself. "He doesn't want me, he has got Asuna, who is more beautiful." These words repeat mockingly in her head as she tries to speak.

But the next thing she knows Kirito is already gone. Coming to her senses she falls to her knees realizing that he is gone.

"Only if I had enough courage." Sinon thinks as she stays down on her knees.

XXXX

Hope you all liked this chapter.

Also it will be awhile before Kirito chooses, so I hope your in for the ride.

Next Chapter will be out next Sunday.

If you have any questions you would like to ask me please do I'll be happy to answer them.


	18. Taken

November 6, 2022 (Flashback)

-Tito-

"Yes!" Tito screams as he punches the air with his fist. He turns his neck side to side cracking it in the process. He crosses his hands and stresses. After about an hour of work he had finally gotten back in.

"Thirty seconds, is enough time for me to get what I need." He says as he starts to go through program after program. This has to work, Tito needs this to work.

"Come on where is it." He says annoyed after about five seconds. But then he finds it, what he had been looking for.

"This will hopefully mend our broken bonds." The man hopes as he begins to scroll through what he had searched for.

 _Battoujutsu_

 _Darkness Blade_

 _Dual Wielding_

 _Ethereal Sight_

 _Heart's Fury_

 _Holy Sword_

 _Infinite Spear_

 _Shurikenjutsu_

 _Summon Up_

 _Vivacity's Fire_

Knowing that he only had limited time to do what he needed to do he just copied a random one and went to find his player data. The last time he had gotten inside the firewalls he had found them.

He went over to them and scrolled down to his player name and loaded the skill on to his character.

He knew he had only a few seconds left as the skill loaded onto his player data his hands and legs started to shake uncontrollably. He grips his desk as he finalely sees the loading stop and finish.

But not with a second to spare a pop up appeared on his computer, then followed immediately by him getting kicked out of the Sword Art Online's data.

He sighed as he leaned back into his swivel chair. Finally he was done hacking into SAO's servers.

"Beat that Kayaba." He says as he continues to lean back. "And myself I guess." He thinks shortly after his last statement

"Yes." He says out aloud as he jumps out of his chair with his fist up in the air. His triumphant mood continues as he pulls his nervegear over his head and logs into SAO.

Tito breathes in the virtual air as he looks at his surroundings. The last time he was in the game was during alpha test where he had developed the security system behind the Cardinal.

That was his third time hacking into his system. First one was a complete fail but he had messed up something in and AI but like that would change anything.

Second time he had found the player data loaded in an item into his inventory, Scroll of the Ancients. It has the ability to take your level and skills and transfer it onto paper. Then you can either give it someone or hold onto but seriously who would want to do that? The main purpose was to transfer a skill to someone. Since this item was seriously over powered in its flexibility and its ability to give someone an unique skill without them having completed the requirements.

Tito looked around and thinked, "I liked the alpha version better, yet again I think this one has less exploits."

With the initial shock of the amazing scenery, Tito had looked in his skills to see if the transfer had worked because if it didn't Tito didn't look forward to hacking into his system again. Only if he known he was going to do this he could have made a back door but instead he had made an almost impenetrable system.

Tito had scrolled through his list and saw a skill that he hadn't used before, _Battoujutsu._

"No either it was an unique or it was an additional random that they got at beginning of their adventure." Tito thought as he read the skills description, _The art of drawing one's sword._

Tito scratched his head confused. He decide instead of testing out in the starting town he would go out into the surrounding fields. As he ran he saw a boy also running and decided to go a different way so no one would see him using his overpower sword skill.

Once he got into the fields into the surrounding the Town of Beginnings he had pulled out his sword and started doing random swings but nothing seemed to activate it.

"God dammit, did I get the troll ability, or do I just suck at hacking?" Tito says as he sheathes his sword. But then he gets hit from behind by a boar. This only takes out a eighth of his health being that the boar was literally the weakest mob in the game if you don't count unskilled players.

He reaches down to get his, but as his hand got closer to the sheathed sword it started to glow. But Tito didn't know this or notice it as he pulled out his sword the sword skill unleashed itself without him noticing at first.

But he noticed when he saw the glowing sword hit the boar for this first time. Tito felt the power surge throughout his body as the sword connected with the boar, almost killing it. Then the skill continued as it the second strike hit the boar killing it.

But with this power came without instability. Tito noticed this right as his second strike connected. Immediately as it hits the boar, Tito loss grip on the sword and the sword flies out of his hand and into the ground.

"Woah." Tito says out of sheer excitement. "Well I guess it's not a useless ability." He says. "I wonder if she'll like it?" Tito asks himself. "Might as well fool around with it while I still have it." Tito thinks as he runs up to another boar.

After fooling around with his ability for way too long, Tito looks at the time and see's that it is 5:24.

"Oh shit she should have been logged on for couple hours now." Tito had thought as he starts to run into the main town. He had told her to log in at 2:00 and well now he was three and half hours late.

"Great job Tito, trying mend a relationship doesn't start with showing up late." Tito thinks as a blue aura appears around him. It teleports him to the spawn point in the Town of Beginnings.

XXXX

Believe it or not this part of my original reasoning for creating this fan-fiction. I had wanted to make a fan-fiction with all of the 10 skills highlighted and well I don't intended on letting myself down.

Also I have a challenge for all of you, If you can PM what you think one of the unique skills might do, I'll tell you the Player that gets it, assuming that you get it right of course.

But that's it for now, the next chapter will be up later today.

Have a nice day!


	19. Together

November 6, 2022

-Tito-

Tito appears in the Town of Beginnings along with everyone else.

"Well I guess that saves my travel time." Tito said as he started to search around for her.

But then Tito started to hear commotion about a hexagon in the sky, so he looked up into the sky and saw the hexagon stretch across the sky. This had made Tito stop his search and look up at the gigantic figure that had started to materialize in the sky.

"Welcome players, I am Akihiko Kayaba and welcome to _my world_ : Sword Art Online." Kayaba started to speak.

"Well thanks I thought the welcome screen when we logged in was enough." Tito said. Kayaba had definitely already lost his attention. Tito had refocus his efforts on searching for her.

"As you may have noticed the logout button is missing from the main menu." Kayaba continues to speak. "THIS IS NOT A BUG, it is a feature of Sword Art Online." Kayaba says.

"What." Tito thinks. He had seen some weird programs in the server but had thought nothing of them.

"If you die in SAO then simultaneously the nervegear will emit a microwave signal that will fry your brain." Kayaba says, "This will also be the cause if someone the outside world takes the nervegear off your head, as a result 213 players have already died." He tells everyone.

"You gotta be kidding me." Tito thinks. "If this is real then, no." Tito thinks.

"I have to find her." Tito says as he begins to step up his efforts.

"Now players by this time you maybe wondering why does Akihiko Kayaba, Creator of nervegear and Sword Art Online would do such a thing." Kayaba begins to speak again. "My goal was a simple one, to control a world of my own design."

"Couldn't he have just filled it full of a bunch of NPC." Tito says as he continues to search.

"Now there is only one way to defeat this game." Kayaba continues. "Beat the boss on floor one hundred." Kayaba informs us.

"Shit, he's not kidding." Tito thinks as he stops walking around. "So my skill can be used to liberate everyone." Tito thinks as he looks down at his sword. "I have got to get her out no matter what it takes.

"Lastly I have left a gift in each of your inventories, please have a look." Kayaba says as he disappears.

Tito looks into his inventory and pulls out the mirror that was below the paper. Just like almost everyone else he was surrounded by a blue gleam that transformed him into his real life appearance. Now he looked like a slightly less attractive 23 year old male with no life.

With that finished Kayaba disappeared leaving the blue sky above all of the players.

Tito, like most players didn't move.

"Well this wasn't really a good birthday gift." Tito had thought. He had given this gift to his sister for her birthday. His father may have told him not to and well maybe they were right.

Then a girl screams and Tito had recognized the girl who had screamed, or at least he hoped he had. The girl scream were those of his 13 year old sister who had just fallen to her knees.

"Keiko!" Tito scream as he started to run around frantically. "Where are you!" He scream at the top of his lungs but this wasn't enough to be heard over all the screaming players.

But conveniently almost all the players had rushed into the middle of the plaza. He saw a group consisting of two boys and two girls, but neither were his sister. But Tito didn't give up he ran around to the other side and found his sister down on her knees.

"Keiko." He said while running up to his sister.

"Tetsuhiko" Tito's sister said while still in shock.

"Come on, I know a place where you can stay." Tito said extending out his hand to her.

"Okay." She says as she stands up with help from her brothers hand.

"It's just over here." Tito says as he leads the way.

XXXX

"Are you okay?" Tito asks his sister who was shaking on the inn bed.

Tito had gotten a one bed room for Keiko but he didn't get a room for himself. No reason to waste col on a room he wasn't going to use.

"I-I'm fine." Keiko says stuttering.

"I'm so sorry." Tito apologizes while slightly bowing.

"You couldn't have known, Tetsuhiko it's okay." Keiko says while holding his hand.

"No!" Tito shouts. This surprised Keiko and she had let go of his hand. "I will make it up to you." Tito says while standing up from the chair at which he sat in.

"No you don't have to, you were trying to do something good and well…" Keiko suddenly stops.

"And somehow I messed up everything beyond repair." Tito finishes her statement. "I got you into this game, I will get you out." Tito says confidently.

"No, someone else will get us out." Keiko says. "We can stay together and wait." Keiko suggests.

"No, no one has the power that I have." Tito states. "I have to help out." He says.

"What?" Keiko asks.

"Nothing, I just have to help them out, to get you out." Tito states

"Let me come with you, to get everyone out." Keiko says while standing up.

"No, stay here where it's safe." Tito says while hushing her to sit back down.

"No!" Keiko shouts. "I can't just stay here and wait for this game to be beaten." Keiko says.

"You're staying here!" Tito shouts demandingly. "I can't lose you too." Tito says under his breath.

"Okay." She starts as though she just lost a fight. "Father." Keiko thinks finishing her thought. She wouldn't have dared to show that much sass to her brother but her thoughts would.

"Sorry, but I have to get you out of here." Tito says as he walks out of the inn room. "And no one has the power I have." Tito says finishing the statement as he closes the door.

"Let's go ahead." Tito says as he runs out of the inn. It would be awhile for him before he mastered his new unique skill.

XXXX

And this was my plan for Keiko. She is one of my favorite Sword Art Online Characters if not my favorite.

My plan for Keiko would make her a ton more important to the story line but I have somewhat of a problem.

I really don't have much of a plan for Rika, So please if you have any Ideas let me here them.

Well that's for now, Hope you all have a great weekend!

The next chapter(s) will be next Sunday


	20. Tone

January 1, 2023

-A bunch of people-

"Hello everyone, thank you all for coming." Diavel starts the meeting. "I have gathered you all today for something that has been brought to my attention, if you would please Argo." Diavel says while motioning for Argo to come over.

"Hello everyone, My name is Argo or most people know me as the best info broker in the game." Argo introduces herself. "I must also thank you all for coming." Argo says.

"As I was notified by one of my resources the ability to create a guild is going to be unlocked after this floor." Argo states. "Diavel as gathered you all here to discuss the creation of the front line guilds." Argo says finishing her statement.

"As Argo said I have gathered you all here for guild creation." Diavel continues off of Argo's speech. "I have invited you all here for either leadership skills or skills as a player." Diavel states.

"So that's why I am here." Kirito thinks. "But where's is Tito then?" Kirito asks himself.

"I have been looking out for players in the last couple of boss battles, both field and floor battles." Diavel states. "I have with pride for myself have gathered most, if not all of the strongest players in Sword art Online at this moment." Diavel says confidently.

"Then why is he here." Kibaou asked rudely while pointing at Kirito.

"Believe it or not he saved our guts during the first raid Kibaou." Diavel states in response. "Now with that out of the way can we start with guild creation." Diavel says.

Kirito looks up seeing that Kibaou like usual was distraught, and that Argo was walking towards him.

"Have fun." Argo says walking past him. She wasn't going to participate in the meeting she just helped out Diavel plan.

"Wait, what…" Kirito starts to speak but gets cut off.

"Ah ah, pay attention." Argo says as she leaves.

"She didn't friend him did she." Kirito thinks. "How do you plan a meeting with someone and not friend them, seriously?" Kirito asks himself.

"Me along with a couple of other players have decided how we will break up the guilds at least for these first couple of floors." Diavel begins his opening speech. "We will be divided up amongst three guilds." Diavel starts.

"One will be for our tanks and anyone among that realm." Diavel starts. "They will be in charge of well taking the brunt of the damage, protecting the rest of us." Diavel states. "It's probably going to be mostly shield users, being that they are by far the most effective at tanking hits." Diavel finishes his statement.

"The second guild will be for our dps based builds." Diavel begins to speak. "Anything from an Axe to a Katana, just people that can dish out the damage but can't take it." Diavel says.

"And finally the last guild will be the support class." Diavel starts the last leg of his speech. "As of right now this guild will be consisted of damaged based players with range like, throwing knives, shurikens and bows when we have them of course." Diavel says.

"There is bows in the game." Sinon asks herself.

"But won't that guild not have that many people right now?" Asuna asks Diavel.

"Yes but as time goes on and more skills are unlocked the guild should grow in size." Diavel answers her.

"And the guilds are designed to focus in those areas but are not limited to." Kirito adds on.

"Diavel was informing you of which areas each guild will focus in those but will have regiments pertaining to other abilities and attributes." Kirito finishes his statement.

"Why should we belie-." Kibaou starts.

"Do you do anything besides call me a filthy beater?" Kirito asks Kibaou rhetorically. This leaves Kibaou in a flustered and defeated state once again.

"What Kirito said is true, but we had agreed at the meeting before this one that the leader of each guild would represent the main attribute of their respective guild." Diavel states. "The reason why I had invited soo many of you is because we would vote on the leaders of each guild." Diavel states.

"For the first guild I think we all agree that Diavel is our best tank." Lind states. Kirito didn't know Lind personally but could tell that Lind and Diavel were one of the same. They both wore blue hair along with blue tunics. The only distinct difference between them besides for the faces was that Lind used a two handed scimitar while Diavel had a shield.

Basically everyone had agreed in unison and with that the first guild leader had been chosen.

"What are you going to name your guild?" One of the players shouted.

"Um, The Knights of Glory!" Diavel shouts while raising his fist to the air. With that, a lot of players started whistling and cheering.

"Okay, my recommendations for the next guild leader while be Tito and Kirito." Diavel states. "They have both shown expertise in swordsmanship skills, therefor showing the worth." Diavel explains to everyone.

"Tito is here." Kirito thinks to himself.

Unlike everyone's agreement for Diavel, it seemed like no one wanted either Tito or Kirito to be a guild leader.

"So what you're saying is you'd rather have some-" Kibaou starts be gets cut off.

"I know that neither of them are the most popular players, but their skills are only matched by each other's." Diavel states.

"With all due respect Diavel, Kibaou has a point." Tito starts.

"No one is going to follow someone that is called a filthy beater." Kirito states.

"Well then who do you recommend?" Diavel asks Kirito.

Kirito looks over to Asuna to see her head is shaking left to right. Seeing this Kirito makes up his mind and says, "Lind." "He has shown his leadership skill in the most recent field boss and is not a bad swordsman himself." Kirito states.

"Well then, any objections?" Diavel asks the crowd.

Though it was less unanimous than Diavel, Lind still got the spot.

"Name?" Tito asks Lind.

"Holy Dragon Brigade." Lind says without hesitation.

"Okay for our last guild I was approached by one of the largest organization in this game." Diavel states. "The Aincrad liberation Force approached me, saying that they wanted to start helping the raid groups." Diavel says. "After extensive negotiation we had came to an agreement." Diavel states. "The Army will be the last guild for now but as apart of our agreement the leader of the attack force will be decided here." Diavel states as he pulls everyone's attention over to Thinker.

"As Diavel was saying, I am here to pick a leader." Thinker states. "After extensive asking of questions I have it narrowed down to two people." Thinker states. "Sinon and Saffi I would like it to be one of you two." Thinker states ending his short speech.

Kirito had never seen Saffi before though he didn't take part in most of the field boss battles. Kirito watched as she walked up to the front along with Sinon. Saffi had silver hair and was a smaller pale girl. Standing next Sinon she was considerably smaller.

"Duel?" Saffi asks Sinon as she pulls up her menu.

"Sure." Sinon answers and immediately after the duel request pops up. Sinon clicked the first option, which was first to half then got into her stance with her Shadow Strike out. On the other side of the duel was Saffi who was standing perfectly still.

The countdown reaches zero and Sinon immediately throws her knife. Without a second of delay Saffi counters her attack with a Shuriken. Then she pulls out two more out of seemingly nowhere and throws at Sinon bringing her to half which in turn gave Saffi the win.

"I take your offer." Saffi says to Thinker.

"Thanks." Thinker says to Saffi.

"With that, the meeting will be adjourned." Diavel says ending the meeting.

After that everyone started to leave while Kirito walked up to Diavel.

"By any chance did you friend Argo?" Kirito asks him.

"Yeah, why?' Diavel asks.

"Oh, nothing, just wondering." Kirito says walking away.

"God dammit Argo, you really do like teasing me." Kirito thinks as he walks out of the meeting.

XXXX

Hey Everyone, hope you all enjoyed this chapter!

Also the appearance of Saffi is like Melia from Xenoblade Chronicles but younger and shorter

The next chapter will be up later today

Hope you all have a great day!

-Kirk


	21. Treasure

January 4, 2023

-Way too many people to list-

"Hey Klein, finally getting up to the big leagues." Coper says to Klein.

"At least for this boss battle, I hear that we can make guilds on floor 5." Klein says excitedly.

"Well it's good to see your not dead yet." Kirito says.

"I'll be dead if I have another drink." Klein says jokingly.

"That one's your fault." Asuna says chuckling.

"Don't worry this won't ever get away from you." Kirito says patting Klein on the back.

"Wait isn't supposed to be the other way around, I'm supposed to be making fun of you." Klein says.

"It would be, if you weren't bad." Coper says to him.

"Hey-!" Klein begins to yell back at Coper but gets cut off.

"Just stop before you make a fool of yourself." Dale, one of Klein's friends from real life says.

"Okay, folks quite down." Diavel says. He was in front of the boss room door. "Let's beat this boss, no lives lost." Diavel shouts as he raised his arm into the air. Everyone erupted in cheer as they started to get in their raid parties.

Kirito was with Asuna, Tito, Kibaou to both of their dislikings, Lind, and Zada a person he has never seen before. They were the squad A for the DPS squads. That didn't surprise Kirito. Basically any group with Tito in would be the premier group. He had already proved his worth by practically soloing two of the floor bosses.

"Let's go ahead." Diavel says while opening the boss room doors. Inside the room was the floor four boss, Marang's Clay Golem. It was what it sound like it was a generic clay golem just really big. During the raid meeting their wasn't much that was going on with this boss. It just slammed it's arms, legs, head, and well body into you making up for almost all of its attacks.

Besides that the boss seemed to be riddled with disadvantages. It couldn't jump, it's range was very small, and at its normal state its movement speed was impeccably slow. Everyone was expecting to have a relatively easy boss battle.

They got into the boss room and started their standard attack pattern. One squad tanks the hits while then switches with a DPS squad to deal maximum damage. But then something was very apparent to almost everyone.

It's defense was what made up for it's disadvantages. In the first couple of minutes they had barely dented the boss but luckily the boss had basically done the same to them.

"Sinon, give me an opening." Tito yells as he starts his run at the boss. In response, Sinon pulls out her knife and throws it at the boss's eye. The Golem saw this and easily deflected with his arm. Though this left Sinon practically useless, she had already lost her Shadow Strike and they weren't even close to being done.

But this didn't stop Tito as he kept running at the boss. The boss countered his attack with a swing of his left fist at Tito. Tito jump and swerved to avoid this one but was immediately hit by the golem's other fist knocking him off to the side.

The Clay Golem went after Tito. He was just about to crush Tito with his foot when a shield user jumped out and blocked Tito from being hit.

"You alright." Diavel asked Tito. He was the one who blocked the incoming strike. But he was not soo lucky with the next strike as it flung him into the air. Diavel landed on the other side of the golem but he wasn't unlucky fellow who had the aggro. That spot was reserved for the hurt Tito.

Tito was still laying down on the ground with barely any health left. He hadn't gotten up yet from his last hit when the boss aimed another one at him. Tito wasn't prepared to die but it seemed inevitable for him. Sinon had already lost her dagger and no one was near the boss except for Diavel who was also laying on the ground.

In response, Kirito had started running for Tito while Asuna, Kibaou, and Lind ran at the boss.

"Tito!" Sinon screamed as she pulled out her Shadow Stiletto but she was too far away for her knife to make it but she would have still tried if it wasn't for the person next her.

Saffi had thrown two shurikens at the boss just the in nick of time. This caused the boss to stop its attack due to the pain that the golem had just received.

"You're welcome." Saffi says to Sinon as she pulls out two more shurikens.

This gave enough for Kirito to run up to Tito and defend the oncoming strike. But Kirito didn't have enough time to get enough balance to successfully defend the punch. The force of the punch knocked Kirito off his feet and onto the ground next to Tito.

The Golem switched it's aggro over to Kirito and launched it's right fist at Kirito. But Tito had more than enough time to recover. He had stood up and stood in front of Kirito with his sword sheathed.

As the fist got closer Kirito saw the sheathed sword glow.

At the last second Tito unsheathed his sword and shouted, "Raikiri!" At the top of his lungs. His sword glowed yellow and as soon as the boss touched the sword lightning burst out of it knocking the golem off its feet and onto the ground.

With that everyone ran at the boss and unleashed their sword skill as Tito helped Kirito up.

"Thanks." Kirito says to Tito.

"Same to you." Tito says as they both run at the toppled boss.

The Clay Golem didn't stand a chance as it had been not able to get up after Tito's raikiri. Everyone hit the boss at full force and just like that the boss's health depleted. They didn't even get to see the boss's attack patterns change.

Everyone started to file out of the boss room obviously they all wanted to create their one guild. They left behind Kirito, Coper, Asuna, Sinon, Tito, and Klein's group.

"Don't die on me yet still have repaid you." Klein says to Kirito as he starts to leave.

"Don't intend on it." Kirito says back.

"Hey do any of you want to join my guild?" Klein asks the group.

Sinon, Tito and Coper all shake their heads no.

"I'm fine." Kirito says.

"No thanks." Asuna says after she sees that Kirito declined the offer.

"Till next time." Klein says as he walks out of the boss room.

Sinon walks up to Kirito and whispers in his ear, "Don't die yet, you still haven't made things right in this world." With that Sinon and Tito leave with Coper soon after.

"Don't do that." Asuna says as she playfully punches Kirito's arm. "Don't scare me." She says to him.

"I can't just stand around and watch someone die, I'd rather die with them." Kirito states.

"Even if that person is Kibaou?" Asuna asks him.

"Yes, but don't worry this game won't beat me not without me beating it first." Kirito Says.

"I beat you." Asuna states.

"Yes and don't tell that to Coper." Kirito says jokingly. "He would have it over me for the rest of my life."

"Don't worry I'll tell him." Asuna says jokingly.

"No no no no." Kirito exclaims.

"Then take me out to dinner." Asuna says jokingly even though she wanted it dearly.

"Okay, demanding much." Kirito says chuckling.

XXXX

Well there you all go

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Hope you all come back next Sunday for the next chapters

Also I would like to say thank you to everyone that has Favorited, Followed, and reviewed

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	22. Spent

Flashback

-Asuna-

"Here you go Miss Asuna." Her suitor said as he pulled out her chair for her.

"Thank you." Asuna says as she sits down.

Her suitor travels to the other side of the table and sits down. "I'm Fumio Maki by the way." Fumio says.

Fumio was 17 maybe 18 with dirty blond hair. He wore glasses and was a thinner man. He looked like the average business man, something Asuna hated but her mother never seemed to get enough of. Fumio was her 7th suitor at age 15 each being a different smart intellectual with prestigious backgrounds and wealthy parents.

All of those things mattered to her mom, Kyouko but not to her. To her marriage was another part of her carrier. But Asuna wanted marriage to mean more than her have a wealthy life. Money can't buy everything.

After a couple minutes of silence from their restaurant table Fumio asked a question. "Where do you go to school?" He asked Asuna.

"Hibiya." Asuna answered him. She may not have wanted this date to happen but it doesn't mean that she could be rude to Fumio. He didn't know what she wanted and besides that she was taught better than just to be plain rude.

"Really, I went to school there too." Fumio says excitedly. He was obviously hoping to break the ice. "How is everyone there?" He asked her.

"Fine I guess." Asuna says nervously. Their drinks hadn't came yet which had made Asuna nervous. She had nothing for her hands to rest on, nothing for her to do. Her leg was shaking rapidly and she was uprised that Fumio hadn't noticed yet, either that or maybe he was just that polite.

"Is Mr. Nakamura still there?" Fumio asked.

"I think he retired." Asuna states.

"Well that's good for him, I really liked." Fumio states. Right after he had finished the drinks finally came and they placed their orders for their meals.

"So what do you do when you're not at school." Fumio continued his onslaught of questions.

"Studying basically." Asuna said as she took a sip of her drink. But this was a lie she was in Sao's beta test. She spent almost all of her time in there but more recently she would daydream about what she would do inside the virtual world. She couldn't wait until the servers opened later today of the official release finally she could get out of this world.

"Same here, the entrance exam for college were insane." Fumio stated.

"What college are you going to try to get into?" Asuna asked. "Better to keep him talking the me." She thought.

"I'm going to The University of Tokyo for my doctoral in management." Fumio states proudly.

"Great another stuck up." Asuna thinks as she takes a sip of her drink. It was almost half gone.

Then their food arrives rather quickly, to Asuna's liking and they start eating. Asuna sneakily watches the way Fumio was eating. Everything was proper don't to the last drop. The only thing that you could criticize him on is being too proper.

"So are you a cat or dog person." Fumio asks Asuna after his mouth is clear.

"Cat but I like dogs just the same just don't let them be big." Asuna states.

Obviously hitting a dead end after that question Fumio quickly comes up with another question. "Do you cook?" Funio asks Asuna.

"Not really, the servants usually do it though I have always wanted to." Asuna states. After that the two of them finish their lunch with little interaction a Fumio pays of the meal.

"How you getting home?" Fumio asks her.

"My parents have a ride set up for me." Asuna lies. She knows exactly what Fumio was trying to do and Asuna didn't want any of it. She would rather take the 30 minute walk home than have another awkward conversation with Fumio.

XXXX  
"I'm home." Asuna said as she entered her house. She was greeted by her mother, the last person she wanted to see.

"How was Fumio?" Kyouko ask her daughter.

"He was nice." Asuna states she was trying to not to get into another argument with her mother.

"That's great I'll go arrange another date." Her mother says ecstatic. Her daughter had never said anything nice about any of the other suitors.

"I don't like him in that way."Asuna says hastily.

"You don't need to, all your husband needs to be easy to talk to and handle." Kyouko says.

"No mom, I want my marriage to mean something not just something for the success of my carrier." Asuna states obviously flustered. "Just not yet mother, let me get through high school at least." Asuna states.

"No!" Kyouko yells. "If you don't start now then you'll regret it for the rest of your life." Kyouko states.

"What if I regret starting now?" Asuna asks her mother.

"You won't." Kyouko states.

"You don't know what I will and will not regret!" Asuna exclaims.

"I do." Kyouko states coldly.

"You are still embarrassed by Grandmother and Grandfather, aren't you." Asuna says. This was always her ace. If the conversation was going downhill this would bring it down as far is it could go. It usual ended the conversation swiftly.

"Don't you talk to me that way." Kyouko started to yell at Asuna. But Asuna just ignored her and started to walk up the stairs. "You come back!" Kyouko demanded Asuna. "You're grounded." Kyouko states.

This got Asuna's attention. It was the first time in awhile that they have pulled out that card but this time Asuna had a card of her own.

"From what, Studying, School, People, nice try, better luck next time." Asuna says right before she ran up to her room and slams the door.

Asuna collapses on to her bed. Luckily for her neither her father or mother knew about her Nervegear or Sword Art Online. She had gotten her brother to sign her up for the beta test and she had paid him to get order the nervegear so that she could play in the beta test.

She sits upright on her bed on her. Her mother wouldn't be chasing her right now. She had a meeting to get to and if Kyouko was thing she isn't a family person. She heard her mother's car drive out of the driveway.

Just to think she would be with Kirito soon. This brought a smile to Asuna's face one that her real life would never give to her. Kirito was type of person that Asuna wanted strong, independent, and best of all would marry for love not money. But what made him special for Asuna, is that she found him not Kyouko.

XXXX

Well here you go everybody, finally a glimpse into Asuna's past

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter!

The next chapter should be out shortly, have a great weekend!

-Kirk


	23. Soon

January 6, 2023

-Asuna and Kirito-

"Asuna?" Kirito says while waving his hands in front of her face. "Asuna." He continues to say as he tries to get her to snap out of whatever she was in.

Usually it was him to get into the state of getting lost in his thoughts but now Asuna was doing it. He could see why it would get on someone's nerves it was really weird looking at someone open eyes without feeling like they are looking back.

"Would you like to order drinks?" The waitress asks Kirito.

"Not now." Kirito says shooing the NPC off.

He couldn't admit to himself but sitting looking at Asuna is something he could do for hours on end. Kirito sat that for what seemed like years for him just looking at Asuna without even doing anything else.

"We should probably order drinks before this place closes." Kirito finally thinks which pulls him back into his senses. "Ha, I guess I fell into the trans like usual." Kirito thinks to himself.

"Asuna." Kirito says but with no prevail. Kirito stands up and reaches out across the table and shakes Asuna's while he say, "Asuna!"

"What, what?" Asuna's says as she comes back to real world.

"You kind of dozed off." Kirito states.

"That's embarrassing." Asuna thinks as her cheeks turn red. "Isn't that your job?" Asuna says quietly.

"I'm not that bad." Kirito states.

"Better leave and cut my losses." Asuna thinks as she stands up.

"Hey hey, I don't mind." Kirito says as he tries to get her back to their table.

"What.. what do you mean?" Asuna stutters out. She obviously different that she was with her sword. She was shy and very unsure of herself.

"You, um…" Kirito starts to say." Kirito knew that his response could lead to two extremes. She could either slap him and rut out. Or she could burst into tears and collapsed onto him again. Kirito had a hard decision in front of him.

"You, you looked cute." Kirito said hesitantly. "Hopefully that doesn't get me slapped." Kirito thought right after he spoke those words.

"He said I was cute." Asuna thinks in her head surprised. "Yes, Yes, Yes!" Asuna shouts in her head. Finally he said it. Now she just has to get him to say the next thing. "It looks like my plan is succeeding." Asuna thinks to herself overjoyed at this fact.

Finally someone she can trust said something on that caliber. Sure she had heard from some of her Mom's suitors. But they never meant anything to her. They were nothing more than a mere bump in the road for her. But here he was what she had tried for all of SAO to get. With him the days here would not be lost.

These thoughts went through Asuna's mind at top speed in a couple of seconds. After all the thoughts had ran through her head she sat back down in her seat.

"Are you two read to order your drinks now?" The waiter asked.

Both Kirito and Asuna ordered drinks and the waitered swiftly left to get drinks for them.

"So I was wondering, how do you like the rapier I got for you on floor one?" Kirito asks Asuna.

"It's nice and good but it's almost out of durability." Asuna states.

"Well that's too bad." Kirito says. "You know what?" Kirito says as he has an epiphany. "You could probably get a blacksmith to melt it down and make a better sword out of it." Kirito states.

"Really!" Asuna exclaims.

"Yeah, but I doubt anyone has that level of blacksmithing." Kirito states.

"I might know someone." Asuna states. Lisbeth might have that level of blacksmithing, but if she does then she will have to find sword.

"Yet again you could also ask Argo if she knows if there is any quest of rapiers." Kirito states as they both get their drinks. They immediately order their food and continue conversing.

"That could also be good I could do it with Kirito and spend more time with him." Asuna begins to think. "But if I do that then I won't continue to use Kirito's first gift." Asuna thinks to herself.

"When you were daydreaming, what were you thinking of?" Kirito asks asuna.

"Um." Asuna starts.

"Oh sorry I was overstepping my bounds." Kirito apologizes.

"No it's okay, just…" Asuna continues but hesitates.

"In the real world I used to do kendo." Kirito states. "I stopped and my grandfather hit for doing so." Kirito continues.

"Oh my." Asuna say while she put her hands over her mouth.

"It stopped when my sister said she would train hard for the both of us." Kirito stated. "I will always be great fully for this but I still felt bad for doing so." Kirito says. "Then I started to keep my distance from her and we grew very far apart." Kirito states. "So if I get back to the other side I will try my hardest to fix it." Kirito states with his eyes looking at his hands.

"Kirito." Asuna says warmingly. Asuna gulps, what she was about to say wasn't the answer to what he had asked but she thought it would suffice.

"I was thinking about my life in the real world." Asuna states as the memories flood back to her from the real world. Those memories were the reason that she dived in the virtual world to escape reality.

"Who were you in real life." Was what Kirito was about to say but he stopped as he soon as he started. It wasn't polite to ask about someone real life in game.

"I didn't really like my real life." Asuna states. "I guess that's why I dove into this world." Asuna says. "To escape reality and be someone that isn't constrained by the people in the real world." Asun says truthfully.

"Only to meet by this cruel version of reality." Kirito states.

"What?" Asuna asks confused.

"Like I said the first time I say you." Kirito says. "You remember that don't you?' Kirito asks her.

"Yeah, never could forget it." Asuna states.

"You can't escape reality because whatever world you're in is your reality." Kirito states.

XXXX

Thank you all for reading this chapter

Hope you all have a great rest of your day!

Next chapter will be out next Sunday

If you have any question regarding this fanfiction, feel free to ask!

-Kirk


	24. Settle

January 7, 2023

-Lizbeth and Asuna-

"Hey Liz." Asuna says as she walks into Lizbeth's shop. "You got yourself a shop." Asuna acknowledges as she looks around.

"I rented this out, don't know if I'm going to continue with blacksmithing." Lizbeth states.

"Oh, come on Liz you're the best I know." Asuna states while trying to coax Lizbeth to keep on going with the blacksmith skill tree.

"I'm the only one you know." Lizbeth states back at Asuna.

"But why are you going to stop?" Asuna asks ignoring Liz's last comment.

"It's not that I don't like it, trust me I have never gotten more joy from swinging a hammer." Lizbeth states sarcastically. "But it's hard to keep this place open with the little people I know." Lizbeth says.

"If would help I could tell people about you, I am a front line clearer." Asuna states proudly.

"Yes, The Legendary Beater Asuna." Lizbeth teases Asuna.

"That's not nice." Asuna say quietly.

"Would you prefer a superhero name." Lizbeth says as she walks over to Asuna and leans on one of her display cases.

"I could embrace that title." Asuna thinks. "It could bring me closer to Kirito." Asuna thinks joyfully.

"I could call you The Flash." Lizbeth states after thinking through the repertoire of super heroes.

"That's the second time someone has called me that." Asuna states.

"Really, who else has my mind set?" Lizbeth asks.

"Him." Asuna states.

"Looks like you have some competition." Lizbeth teases Asuna.

"Like I need more of that." Asuna sighs.

"I should meet him, I mean if we have the same mind set he would be fun to talk to." Lizbeth states.

"If you put it that I guess I can't object." Asuna says. "I'll see if I can bring him." Asuna says.

"Awesome, can't wait to see the swordsman that has smitten The Legendary Asuna." Liz states excitedly.

"I'm not that bad." Asuna says as her cheeks turn a bright shade of red.

"It couldn't be more obvious." Lizbeth states. In response to this Asuna turns even more red. "I bet if he doesn't see it he would be denser than the earth's core." Lizbeth states.

"I wouldn't be surprised if he was." Asuna jokes around.

"So you've already got competition?" Lizbeth asks.

"Yeah and a fierce one at that." Asuna states while thinking about Sinon.

"Well that sucks, but if I can help it, I'll help you." Lizbeth promises.

"Really, are you sure we only just met?' Asuna asks unsure of Lizbeth's trustworthiness. In fact she hadn't even told Lizbeth that the swordsman name was Kirito, in fear that she might tell him.

"I may have not know you for a month yet but you're the only person in this whole world that is enjoyable to talk to." Lizbeth states reassuring Asuna.

"I don't even visit you that often." Asuna states again trying to get out of Lizbeth's unconditional trust.

"I get why, the front lines take up a bunch of time." Lizbeth states. "It's funny." Lizbeth says while laughing.

"What?" Asuna asks.

"That you're asking me this now, not when you literally spilled everything to me last time." Lizbeth states.

"Well you got me there." Asuna says.

"But you have to keep your promise." Lizbeth states.

"There's your motive." Asuna says.

"It wasn't the only reason." Lizbeth says hastily.

"No it was the main reason." Asuna teases her.

"That's not nice, why are you teasing me, that is my job." Lizbeth states while embarrassed.

"Just making up for lost time." Asuna states.

"You have a lot more to go then." Liz says jokingly.

"Yeah, I have a question." Asuna states.

"Go, just don't make it take an hour like last time." Lizbeth teases Asuna once again.

"Can you melt this sword than forge out of it?" Asuna asks as she pulls out her Wind Fleuret.

"Let me see it." Lizbeth says as she takes the rapier out of Asuna's extended arms. She takes it then starts analyzing the sword. Her analyzing skill wasn't all that great yet so she couldn't entirely trust what it was made out of. But nevertheless she was going to put her faith into her skill.

It told her that it was made out of alumite enhanced iron. She hadn't dealt with many alumite anything but she dealt with iron quite a lot. If alumite enhanced the blade then the two metals must have some of the same properties. She knew how to melt Iron so she had decided right there that she would attempt to melt it, that is if Asuna gives her the go ahead.

"I can attempt to melt it into an ingot." Lizbeth states.

"Go right ahead." Asuna says giving her the go ahead.

"Okay." Liz says as she sticks the sword into the furnace and starts to melt it. Knowing this was a incredibly long process she asks Asuna a question, "How is it going with him."

"Good, no great actually." Asuna says. "I finally had a date with him." Asuna states happily.

"Really, tell me about it." Liz says sounding very intrigued as she melts Asuna's rapier.

"Well he had invited me to dinner and at the beginning I had kind of gotten lost in my thought." Asuna states.

"Oh no, tell me that it got better." Lizbeth says as if she was on the edge of her seat.

"I was just about to leave out of embarrassment then he told me that I looked cute when I spaced out." Asuna states overjoyed with happiness.

"Really, tell me that you're not just telling me this because I want to hear it." Lizbeth says excitedly.

"No I'm not, I was ecstatic when he told me this." Asuna says while literally jumping for joy.

"Well that didn't take that long." Liz says as she pulls the ingot out of the furnace and places it on her anvil. "A rapier right?" Liz asks making sure.

"Yeah." Asuna answers her.

Liz strikes the ingot five times before the ingot transformed into a rapier.

"It's the Adamantite Rapier ." Liz states.

"Thanks Liz." Asuna says as she takes the rapier out of Liz's hand."

"What do I owe you?" Asuna asks as she opens up her inventory.

"Nothing, just go get him." Liz says.

"Thanks Liz." Asuna shouts as she gets to the shop's door.

"Good luck." Liz shouts as Asuna leaves the shop.

XXXX

Hey everyone, thank you all for reading this chapter!

The next Chapter will be out shortly

If you a have any suggestions or criticism, feel free to PM or review

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	25. Seasoning

January 10, 2023

-Tsubaki-

"Woah!" Tsubaki said as she appeared on the fifth floor. She had never seen anything so amazingly beautiful. The fifth floor wasn't anything spectacular to most but to Tsubaki she had never seen anything like it.

The fifth floor itself was a forest. A dense humid forest to be precise. But of course where she had warped to wasn't very dense at all. All Tsubaki saw was a view of a lifetime as she warped in. The spawn point for floor five was very high up as it overlooked the dungeon of the floor.

That didn't matter to Tsubaki at as she just ran away from the spawning point and to the town. She didn't intend on stopping in the town though. Sure the town looked stunning but the forest made her jaw drop.

She was running nonstop through the town keep a very close attention to her surroundings, like she usually did. But this didn't slow her down. Even though being overly observant was very new to her, it was almost like second nature.

Tsubaki ran through the town free spirited all the way through. Hopping and jumping as she ran. This caused her to attract tons of attention. It was rare to see someone so happy and full of life in the death game. It made everyone stop what they were doing and watch as Tsubaki passed them.

She finally got out of the city and away from everyone's curious eyes to see a field in the distance. Past the field was the very forest that she had been running towards but she couldn't just stop and not take in the field.

Tsubaki gets to where what she perceived as the middle of the field. Besides for the field surrounding her, their was a man about twenty paces away from her fighting off two wasps. He seemed to be having an easy time with them.

The man that Tsubaki had noticed in the field had on a red bandanna, which matched his red hair. He look like a classic Samurai just with shitier armor. He looked to be in his 20's Tsubaki had guessed approximately 23-24 years old. This was what Tsubaki had been able to observe in a matter of two seconds.

Also there was an additional wasp about 15 feet away from her. She had been caught in the mob's aggro and the mob start to move towards here. But the wasps movement speed was crap, which gave Tsubaki time for what she had wanted to do.

Tsubaki closed her eyes and breathed in through her nose and mouth at once. It had felt as though she was back in the real world. She could smell the clean air mixed with the smell of fresh grass. This was amazing it felt as though she had never felt pain before. All of her worry was taken away from her as she took in that one breath of air.

But her tranquil state was interrupted by the Samurai's screams. The screams weren't of distress the screams was for her to move.

"Move, run!" The Samurai screamed at her.

"I would have had two more seconds if you hadn't interrupted me." Tsubaki thought as she finally opened her eyes back up and jumped away from the wasp.

Tsubaki looked at the monster. It was in fact a wasp but it was the Queen Wasp, a unique monster. Unique monsters were nothing really to fret over. They were a couple of levels above the surrounding monsters. Their sole purpose was to make it so players wouldn't feel too safe while grinding.

"Are you okay?" The Samurai asked Tsubaki.

"I haven't even been hit yet." She says sarcastically back as she unsheathed her Xiphos(type of sword).

"My observations aren't perfect yet." Tsubaki says as she gets into her stance. She raises her hand up and angles the end of the blade down diagonally.

In response to this the Samurai also got into his stance which had him put his katana out in front of him, straight and angled up.

The Wasp Queen was upped in scale to compared to the real world. Not only that the wasp's arms were sharp but it had six of them.

Tsubaki was prepared for this unlike the Samurai, who just rushed in recklessly. The wasp easily countered him and sent him flying off to the side. Tsubaki stance didn't change one bit during the Samurai's assault. During the whole entire assault she had been memorizing the Queen's movements.

After about five seconds of neither the wasp or Tsubaki moving, the wasp attacked with all three appendages from one side. But Tsubaki had seen this coming. She easily side stepped it and in response the Queen launched the other three appendages at her.

But once again Tsubaki was a step ahead of the wasp. She had predicted the the mob might launch that attack so with not one second to spare she used her upward vertical sword skill and cut all three arms.

The queen immediately backed away but didn't get away from Tsubaki's next onslaught of attacks. She used her linear thrusting ability to unleash a four hit combo, she thrusted her blade into the body of the boss.

This was enough to make the boss exploded into millions of blue shards.

The samurai stood their astounded at the skill he had just seen come out of someone so young. He had only seen in two other cases.

"I'm Klein." The Samurai says as he extends his hand out towards her.

"Tsubaki." She says as she takes the Samurai's hand.

"What was that?" Klein asks defound at what he had just noticed.

"What do you mean?" Tsubaki asks confused.

"The sword skills." Klein says to clear up his question.

"Oh, that." Tsubaki acknowledges. "It was a combination of both thrusting and slashing skills."

"Woah, how did you do that?" Klein asks continuing his onslaught of questions.

"The is a Xiphos, and sword that is built for both thrusting and slashing, and please no more questions." Tsubaki says annoyingly.

"Just one more, why don't people use that sword instead of others?' Klein asks ignoring her request.

"This is my Charlotte, not only is it extremely rare, you have to level up both one handed long sword and rapier skills trees." Tsubaki says obviously annoyed. "I'm leaving now." She states as she sheathes her sword and walks towards the dungeon.

"I'm coming with you." Klein states as he to sheathes his sword.

"What, no you didn't ask in the first place." Tsubaki says.

"You said I couldn't ask any questions." Klein states as he starts to walk towards the dungeon. "You coming or what?" Klein asks her.

Tsubaki sighs and says, "Fine, but don't get on my nerves."

XXXX

Hope you all liked this chapter

Also FYI this Fanfic is going to have a very large cast both include canon characters and OC's but more canon characters tho.

Thank you to all who Reviewed, Favorited, and Followed

Next chapter(s) will be out next Sunday

-Kirk


	26. Seek

January 10, 2023

-Tsubaki and Klein-

They were both traversing through the forest dungeon. The dungeon to Klein wasn't all that breath taking. Sure it was amazing but not something that would make him stop to take in.

Tsubaki however stopped all the time to take in the all that was around her. To smell, hear, and see the forest was amazing. Like nothing she had ever done before. But yet again she said that for almost everything that she had seen.

Tsubaki wouldn't stay on one floor for extended periods of time even if that floor had much better drops than the last. It was too boring to wake up to the same floor two days in a row. Tsubaki wanted adventure, she wanted to explore and see what this world has to offer.

Klein like most people wanted to get out of the game. But he tried to stay cheerful in the death game. Klein looked up and continued to stare at the girl in front of him.

She had dark purple hair along with the red eyes he had seen earlier. She looked to be around 16 years of age to Klein. Her hair barely passed her chin, giving a bit of a tom boy look. She was wearing a long white coat that reached her knees. Though the coat has buttons on the front she had neglected to use them.

Her sword was acrossed her back being held up by her leather scabbard, similar to a certain swordsman he knew. Underneath her coat she was a basic black t-shirt along with black shorts. She also had laced boots that came all the way up to just barely under her knees.

"So how long are you going to stare at me?" Tsubaki asked Klein, breaking him out of her trans.

"I-I wasn't." Klein stutters out to defend himself.

"You have been doing it for the last 15 minutes." She acknowledges.

"What, no-no I wasn't." Klein again fails to get the words out correctly to defend himself.

"Better luck next time." Tsubaki says as she turns back around. She puts her hands back into her coat pockets as she continue to go deeper into the dungeon.

As she continued through the dungeon kept seeing the same thing over and over until she finally wasn't as amazed by it. Tsubaki stopped walk and closed her eyes. During this time she just breathed as she listened to the forest noises. She hear the small patter of the little floor animals. The quiet flaps as the birds flew from tree to tree.

But then she heard a voice. One from the real world.

"You can't escape it." The voice said to her.

"No no NO,you can't, stop following me, I finally seen a world where it's finally has enough beauty for me to see." Tsubaki thinks. It was obvious that she was in distress as she fell from her feet to her knees.

"Tsubaki, are you okay?" Klein asks while running up to her aid.

As soon as Klein got to her saw a Tiger in front of him. Klein unsheathed his sword and held it out, directly in front. Then the tiger ran at him and headbutted the side of Klein's sword before he could move it away.

The force of the Tiger immediately took its toll when Klein's sword was thrown a couple of meters behind him. Klein runs towards the sword but is cut off by the Tiger.

"Looks like this is the end." Klein thought to himself. "Overpower by a simple mob.' Klein thinks while laughing to himself. "Still didn't find someone." Klein thinks to himself. "NO, I can't die yet, there's still more to do." Klein accidently shouts out loud.

"I hate this world for one reason." Tsubaki says as she stands back up and unsheathes her sword. "Don't fail me now Charlotte." She whispers as her is completed unsheathed. As she her sword rips through the virtual tiger she says, "It's a MMO."

"Thank you." Klein says as he finally catches his breath.

"So what do you still have to do?" Tsubaki asks Klein.

"Um, Who's Charlotte?" Klein asks back at her.

"Nevermind then." Tsubaki says as she starts walking to the entrance of the dungeon.

"Okay, I'll tell first." Klein starts. "One out of the many things I haven't done, is find someone hold." Klein says while looking down at his feet.

"Is that why you came with me?" Tsubaki asks yet another question.

"Yes." Klein sighs out.

"How old do you think I am?' Tsubaki asks curiously.

"16 years old." Klein states. In response to this Tsubaki bursts out laughing. "Then what age are you?" Klein asks mistakingly.

After slowly getting over her laughing fit Tsubaki coughs out, "It's not nice to ask a girl's age." With that said Tsubaki waits a few second before flowing up with, "I'm 14."

"Really." Klein says astounded.

"Nice job." Tsubaki says as she walks past Klein, and pats him on the back.

"W-Well how old do you think I am?" Klein asks her.

"23 or 24." Tsubaki says as she turns to face Klein. She looks at him from head to toe once again and says, "24."

"Dammit." Klein exclaims

"Better luck next time." Tsubaki says as she starts to walk away.

"Wait where are you going?" Klein asks her once he realizes she walking the wrong way. "That's the entrance you are walk towards." Klein states.

"Out." Tsubaki answers him as she continues to walk out.

"Wait why, we still haven't killed the boss at the end dungeon." Klein states.

"I didn't come for the loot." Tsubaki states coldly.

"The why did you come?" Klein asks her.

Tsubaki turns around for one final time and says, "There's so much to see, I don't waste the next hour beating a stupid boss." After this Tsubaki turn around and head for the exit once again hoping that Klein wouldn't try on stop her for the forty second time.

"Tsubaki." Klein says after her ran up to her and grabbed her arm.

"What?" Tsubaki yells out of frustration. She immediately gets her arm out of Klein's grasp without even turning around.

"Okay I understand that you don't want to stay here, so how about you come back with me and meet my guild." Klein proposes his idea to her.

"That would be nice, but I have to decline." Tsubaki polite declines his offer. "I'm sorry maybe next time." Tsubaki adds on shortly afterwards.

"Okay then, can I friend you?" Klein asks her as he sends her a request.

"Well you already sent it." Tsubaki says as she taps the accept button. After this she starts to walk away from Klein but he had one final question.

"Who's Charlotte." He asks her.

This made Tsubaki stop in the middle her walk. One of her feet barely off the ground while the other was set complete on the ground. His question made her stop and her foot slowly came back to the ground. This put her into in a state of thought on whether or not to lie.

"My dog." Tsubaki states without turning around.

XXXX  
Hello everyone, sorry for the late upload ;(

But alas here is the next chapter

Also Tsubaki looks like Kioto Minase from Musaigen No Phantom World

Next Chapter will be out shortly


	27. Supplicate

January 11, 2023

-Sinon and Kirito-

"So what did you want to talk about at… Four o'clock in the morning?" Kirito asks Sinon sleepily as he collapses into the one chair in Sinon's inn room.

"Like I messaged you, I wanted help with something." Sinon states seaming oddly awake.

"Do I get to know what it is?" Kirito asks while he tries to stay awake.

"I want help with Tito." Sinon states as she pulls her Shadow Strike out of her inventory.

After seeing Sinon's choice of weapon Kirito says, "What, you don't like the one I gave you."

"You seem oddly observant for someone who is almost asleep." Sinon states as she opens up her inn room door.

"What's wrong with Tito?" Kirito asks as he stands up and stretches his arms.

"I'll explain on the way, just hurry up I don't want to have to pay another day for this room." Sinon tries to get the sleepy Kirito to move faster.

"Wait you pay the room at ten not four." Kirito says realizing Sinon faults.

"Do you want a knife in your back?" Sinon asks rhetorically.

"I-I'm fine." Kirito says hastily as he leaves her room.

"Let's go." Sinon says as she starts to walk out the inn and out into the fifth floor market place. "He is this way." Sinon says as she holds up a finger to show Kirito the way.

"So what exactly are we doing?" Kirito asks Sinon.

"We're going to catch him in the act." Sinon says deviously.

"Sooo, what exactly is the 'act'?" Kirito continues with his questions.

"I'm worried he's pushing himself too hard." Sinon states.

"And you needed me, why?" Kirito asks coming off rudely.

"And you think I can stop him." Sinon returns Kirito's rudeness back at him.

"You think I can stop his _Battoujutsu_." Kirito asks rhetorically while he chuckles to himself.

"His…, what?" Sinon asks Kirito dumbfoundedly.

"Uh, how about this." Kirito starts while he tries to figure out a plan. Kirito reaches to his sheathed sword across his back and takes his metal scabbard off his back. He then attaches his scabbard to his metal which concealed by his coat.

"Like this." Kirito says as he grasps his sword. He unsheathes his sword seamlessly, then flows almost immediately into a four hit combo with ease. But there was one thing that was different about Kirito's from Tito's. Kirito didn't use a single sword skill, leaving his blade dull the entire time

"Wow." Sinon says while clapping.

"Yeah I have been practicing it for a bit, but it's highly impractical without sword skills." Kirito states.

"So you don't know how he does it." Sinon states while wondering how he could possibly active the sword skills.

"All I know is, it saved me." Kirito states. "So where are we off to, miss?" Kirito asks Sinon.

"We are going to the dungeon of floor five." Sinon states.

"The forestry one, right?" Kirito asks, making sure.

"Yea, isn't that one beautiful." Sinon says as she recalls parts of the dungeon from her memory.

"It does has its moments." Kirito says as they start to head off to the forest dungeon.

XXXX

"There he is." Sinon whispers to Kirito while pointing at Tito. They had just spent about an hour walking through the maze of a dungeon. And finally, after all their searching they had found him.

"So why are you worried about him." Kirito questions Sinon once again.

"Long answer or short." Sinon continues their trend of never ending questions.

"How long are we going to be here." Kirito quietly continues to probe her.

"Till he levels up." SInon states.

"WHAT-." Kirito starts to yell then gets cut off immediately by Sinon hands. "Stake out, gotcha." Kirito whispers even more quiet than before. "I don't even level up daily, let alone in one dungeon run." Kirito quietly exclaims

"Okay." Sinon says as she returns her attention back to Tito.

"Wait, for long are we going to do this for?" Kirito asks Sinon yet another question.

"As long as we need to, I brought some food also." Sinon states.

Besides for being slightly happy about food Kirito thinks of something he hadn't thought of before. He opens his menu and opens his first list. He could see his friends levels next to their names.

"Are you looking to see his level?" Kirito probes around some more.

"Yeah, why?" Sinon asks back.

"His level should be right next to his name in your friends list." Kirito states.

"Yeah, I checked that he has his profile and information set to private." SInon states.

"Really?" Kirito says dumbfounded.

"He is very independent." Sinon says as she looks over to him.

"You like him, don't you?" Kirito states causing Sinon to blush.

"What, What no I don't." Sinon tries to defend herself. "You're just jealous that there is someone stronger than you." Sinon states trying to redirect the conversation away from her.

"I'm glad, we did kind of save our asses back at the last floor boss." Kirito states.

With that their conversation went from about Tito to about the new guilds springing up from everywhere. In just about a week over fifty guilds had already been created. Everything was going fine in the Floor raids. The next raid was scheduled for the 12th and they really did have a rhythm going starting to take shape.

After about two hours of them stalking Tito and talking, mainly about randomness, they finally heard a ding which indicated that Tito had leveled up.

 _Level 20 - Level 21_

With that Tito didn't stop grinding. He ran down the forest path away from Sinon and Kirito, so he could find more mobs spawning in. But this time Kirito and Sinon didn't follow him.

"How is he that High leveled?" They both think to themselves.

"Kirito, what level are you?" Sinon asks Kirito. This was on the reasons she had asked him to come with her, the other being it would be extremely boring if she had no one to talk to.

"I'm level 17, how on earth did he get to be four levels above me?" Kirito asks.

"So I was right in thinking that." Sinon says out loud to herself.

"Right in what?" Kirito asks her.

"I thought that he was exerting himself because I would almost never see him unless it was for a boss raid or he needed help with something, which didn't come by often." Sinon states.

"I'll help you confront him at the next boss raid, okay?" Kirito reads Sinon's mind.

"Thank you." Sinon says.

"So what level are you?" Kirito asks her.

"That's like asking someone's age, not cool." SInon says jokingly. "I'm level 15." Sinon states after teasing Kirito a bit.

XXXX

Hope you all like this chapter

Next chapter will be out next Sunday

Thanks for all who have supported this Fanfic

Have a great week

-Kirk


	28. Slipperiness

January 12, 2023

-Boss Raid People-

They all heard the snort that come out from the boss as the boss appeared. They looked to the middle of the room to see a huge dog humanoid boss named, Kiyotaka, Korrina's drive.

The boss held out its left arm as its celtic sword materialized in its hand. Kiyotaka brought the sword directly in front of him as his right hand also grasped the handle.

No one moved.

"Attack it's right side." Tsubaki yelled at everyone.

"What, are you insane?" A couple of clears yelled in response to her.

"Fine I'll do it myself." She thought to herself as she started her run at the boss but she was not alone. Trailing her was Tito with his sword sheathed as usual.

The bosses left hand left go of the celtic sword as he unleashed a horizontal starting from the right. The horizontal was very low but Tsubaki managed to duck underneath it and continue her run.

But Tito however was not as short as Tsubaki which made ducking underneath the sword nearly impossible so in response he unleashed his Raikiri as the bosses sword is mere inches away from his body.

"Raikiri!" Tito shouted so that everyone in the boss room could hear him. But his sword skill didn't work as it had last time. This time it had just stopped the blade from slashing unlike last time when he had literally knock the boss off of it's feet. Not even lighting that came from the sword skill was enough to knock the boss back just a tiny bit.

But it didn't stop there. The boss didn't disengage the two swords it started to push harder against Tito's katana. The boss's left hand now gripped the sword. This gave Kiyotaka the power to start to push Tito back with the pressure of his sword against Tito's.

While this was going on Tsubaki had been running at the boss. After ducking she easily regained her footing as she barely slowed down. Kiyotaka had payed no attention to her, to her liking. Right as she got close enough to the boss to strike him, Tito's had strength had started to fail him and he got thrown across the room by the boss's sword.

Tsubaki used this time to attack the bosses feet but only got one slash off before the boss kicked her away. WIth his only to attackers attacks cancelled, he had thrown a downwards vertical right in the middle of the raid group.

Lucky no one had gotten hit, but the parties were cut in half and in chaos, which didn't help at all.

"Knights draw it's aggro!" Diabel commands his subordinates. All of the Knights of Glory members had rallied together and finally got the boss's aggro.

Through all of this one thing was one Sinon's mind, could she talk to Tito? But now was not the time as the had a gigantic floor boss in front of them.

On the other side of the boss room was Asuna, Coper, and Kirito. They were all in a raid party together as they were some of the only beaters along with Sinon, Tito and Tsubaki being the only other clearers in this boss battle that weren't affiliated with any guild.

"Let's run." Coper said as he started to run at the boss. Even though he started before Kirito and Asuna he was slower than the both of them. Asuna got to the boss first and started to unleash a sword skill at the boss, but unluckily for her she attracted the boss's aggro.

The boss's first action was to throw a horizontal slash at Asuna. Luckily for her, Coper had her back and redirected the slash to be a couple of centimeters above her head.

"To close." Kirito thought as he got up to Asuna in time to see the next attack. Asuna wasn't paying much attention as she was in the middle of a combo, but luckily for her she had to beaters with that are paying attention.

The boss's next attack came her above with almost all of the boss's weight in the attack. Kirito jumped in front of Asuna, to protect her from the oncoming blow. He put his left hand on the flat side of his blade right before the boss struck it with his celtic sword.

But the outcome was not what Kirito had expected, as when the boss's sword hit his the boss's sword went clean through but luckily it had missed Asuna and only nicked Kirito's left arm.

The end part that had been separated from the rest of the blade had shattered leaving three fourths of the blade left. But unlike the end that had shatter the part Kirito was still holding hadn't.

As the next slash came down at Kirito, Asuna had yelled at him to get away. But Kirito wasn't fast enough to get out of the way. Luckily for him a certain beta tester wasn't about to let Kirito die as he blocked Kiyotaka.

"Fall back, we can handle it from here." Diabel yelled over all the events that transpiring in the room. Asuna helped Kirito get back to where Coper was. As he got back there Kirito saw that the boss was entering its last health bar.

Once the Kiyotaka's health reached its final bar his sword started to glow a dark blue. The boss immediately did something unexpected it swung directly at a Knight member that didn't have it's aggro.

The clearer held up his shield to protect himself from the blow but the boss's sword broke straight through the shield, stabbing the player directly in the chest, killing him in one hit.

"Attack it!" Lind yelled at his men. Almost all of the melee users ran at the boss from all angles. One of the army members was the unlucky one to have the boss's aggro.

Kiyotaka only through one vertical at the player before he like the last player was only blue shards before disappearing into the games files. This caused almost every player to hesitate. In fact only one play was still near the boss, as all the other players had already backed away.

Diabel was the soul player standing in front of the humanoid creature. "Come at me, not them!" Diabel screamed at the boss with his sword held high. The boss unleashed a vertical at Diabel but unlike the other players before him his shield did not give in when he blocked with it.

The sent attack after attack until one attack knocked away Diabel's shield. But luckily for him, one knife wielder had thrown her knife at the boss. But the boss just simply deflected with his arm.

But this was enough time for Diabel to grab his shield and run towards the boss. He unleashed his 5 hit combo and hit all five before the boss kicked Diabel away. This left the boss with just a sliver of health left.

As all the clearers started to run at the boss, Saffi had thrown six shriekens at the boss, two at a time. The first two the boss ducked under and easily avoided them. But the next two were harder to dodge for Kiyotaka.

He used his sword to block both of the shriekens then he went into a rampage. He swung his sword around in what seemed to be random until one of his swings hit three players at once, killing all three of them. But these were the last casualties as Saffi's last two shriekens finally took out the rest of the boss's health.

There was hardly any cheering as this was the first boss battle where they had lost more than one player. They had lost five this time. The congratulations sign that had popped up only served to remind them that they have still over ninety floors to go.

The Army left first with both Knights of Glory and Holy Dragon Brigade shortly afterwards. After the smaller guilds left it had only left the four solo players, as Tsubaki and Coper had already left.

Tito tried to leave but Kirito stopped him.

"Tito we need to talk." Kirito states to Tito.

"No, we don't." Tito sighs out. Though he had spent most of the boss raid on the ground it didn't mean that he wasn't exhausted.

"Tito, you have to give yourself a break." Kirito states.

"I won't stop until I beat this game," Tito spits at Kirito. "And get her out." Tito finishes his sentence in his head. Tito tries to walk past Kirito but once again Kirito stops him.

"Please." Kirito says.

"I will get passed you even if it means attacking you." Tito says as he gets into his stance with his sword sheathed.

"Kirito, please don't." Asuna pleads to Kirito.

"It's fine." Kirito says as he sends a duel request to Tito. "You can click until death if it suits you, just remember there's witnesses." Kirito says half joking half not.

Tito clicks until half and they both get into their stances with Kirito's Anneal Blade unsheathed and Tito's sheathed. Once the count hits zero they both run at each other. Kirito throws his first slash at Tito but Tito just knocks it away with his obsidian warfist. Then he throws a punch with his other hand at Kirito face but Kirito jumps back to avoid.

"Is that the best you got." Kirito says antagonistically as he gets back into his stance.

"Not by a long by a long shot." Tito says as he runs at Kirito, obviously antagonized. He runs at Kirito and immediately throws both of his fists at Kirito once he got into distance. Kirito easily sidestep him and cuts Tito's stomach in the process.

"Raikiri!" Tito yells as he pulls out his sword. The momentum of the sword skill got Tito to spin around and hit Kirito in the face with his sword. The Raikiri hits Kirito in the face bringing him down to the red zone, ending the duel.

Tito walks away without saying anything.

Sinon runs up to Kirito while Asuna is also running towards him. Sinon gets to him first and gives him a brief thanks before she leaves.

"Are you okay?" Asuna ask Kirito once she gets to him.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Kirito says very convincingly. So Asuna sits down in front of him and holds his face in her hands.

"Please, don't scare me like that." Asuna pleads to Kirito.

"Sorry, I had to do that." Kirito states.

"Do what?" She asks.

"Help out a friend, besides I would have done the same for you." Kirito states as he looks into Asuna's eyes.

XXXX

Thank you all for reading

Hope you've had a great day!

#Longest chapter yet

Next chapter will be out shortly

-Kirk


	29. Severed

January 13, 2023

-Kirito-

Kirito was sitting in his Inn room. He had his Furious Ironbark longsword laying across the table in front of him. He had only had it for barely even two weeks.

Just fourteen days.

One for each year of his young life.

Kirito picks up his damaged sword off the table. He holds up the sword and examines the sword he had gotten from Sinon not too long ago. Its durability was at zero, so even if he wanted to use it in its current condition it would only get one use.

"Next time I'll try to keep you gift from breaking for a little longer." Kirito says to himself as if Shino was sitting across from him. "On the bright side, if I wanted to I could definitely shave my legs with this sword." Kirito laughed after thinking this.

"Well I guess it didn't help that the only male role model I had traveled for work." Kirito thinks to himself, trying to justify his last stray thought.

His message inbox made a quiet ding, which indicated to Kirito that he had just received a message. He had messaged Argo about blacksmith just a few minutes ago, so hopefully it was her.

 _Here's what I found, There is one in the Aincrad Liberation Force, if you want to deal with that. There is always Again but he has been busy with his business so I don't think he has been leveling up much. But the one I recommend is an independent blacksmith by the name of Lizbeth, she's on floor three, don't cheat on Asuna tho!_

 _P.S. You owe me 1000 col for this_

"Well you definitely know how to piss me off." Kirito thinks as he quickly closes the message.

"Thanks Argo." Kirito thinks both sarcastically and sincerely.

Kirito picks up the long sword and puts it into his inventory while thinking, "Let's see what I can salvage out of this mess up."

This certainly was not his first mistake, it wasn't even his first mistake with Sinon. And he would certainly fail more than he would like.

Kirito stands up from his chair and stretches. He equips his Coat of Midnight and looks into a mirror that on the wall in his Inn room.

Besides for thinking about how unusual it was for there to be a mirror in the bedroom, he had finally seen himself in the game. The thought of looking at himself in real life never occurred to him yet alone in a game.

Kirito looked at his appearance with his black coat on and one thought came into Kirito's head, "Man, I look good in black." He didn't have been black pieces of clothing back in the real world, they were all mainly blue. It made sense why he looked good in black, because the two colors are very similar, especially with his dark shade of blue.

"Well, I'd better get this sword fixed." Kirito mutters to himself as he leaves in room. This was the last time he was staying in the inn on floor five as floor six had been just made available.

XXXX

"Hey, are you Lizbeth?" Kirito asks after walking around the third floor market place. Argo hadn't given him any description of the blacksmith, nor did he want to. Kirito had no need to get pestered by Argo for another 100 col.

As for finding a Lizbeth, it is pretty easy to find a girl in a MMO, especially for Kirito it seems. But nevertheless Kirito found what he was looking for, or rather who he was looking for.

"Yep, resident blacksmith." Liz proudly response to Kirito's question.

"I was wondering if you could repair this sword." Kirito says as he takes out his Furious Ironbark Longsword. He places into Lizbeth's outstretched hands as she examines it.

"In theory I could." Lizbeth says doubtingly.

"Let's see then." Kirito says optimistically.

"I have to warn you, I have never done this before." Lizbeth states with caution.

"First time for everything." Kirito says.

"Follow me back up to my room." Lizbeth says as she motions for Kirito.

"Okay." Kirito obliges.

After a couple moments of walking in awkward silence, Liz says something to Kirito. "You seem oddly optimistic for being this world?"

"No reason not to be, if I'm optimistic enough maybe this repair might actually work." Kirito states still remaining optimistic.

"You're a weird one." Lizbeth chuckles.

"That's a weird thing to say to someone you just met." Kirito says back to her.

"I guess." Lizbeth says slowly.

They get to Lizbeth small shop off the main market and Lizbeth opens the door while motioning for Kirito to go in before her. This was customary for her to do for her customers. Kirito instead of walking in ahead for her he also holds the door and says ladies first. Lizbeth walks into her shop with Kirito soon after.

"Why is your store all the way out here?" Kirito asks Liz.

"Well, believe it or not the rent for this store and a stand is less than one of the up front stores." Lizbeth states. "And besides it's not like this is the hard community to sell to, some of them have four swords for back up." Lizbeth states humorously.

"Well I'm glad I had at least one extra." Kirito states.

"May I start?" LIzbeth asks Kirito for permission.

Kirito gives her a simple hand gesture that basically said for her to start. While she was preparing whatever she need to, Kirito had a look around.

It was a small two story shop. Kirito figured that the second story is where she lived. On the first story, where he was currently there was the typical and basic blacksmithing things. This wasn't to say that Lizbeth wasn't a very good blacksmith, it's just that the other things hadn't been made available to them yet.

Kirito returns his attention to Lizbeth, who had his sword heated and was attaching a different piece of Kirito thought was iron to the end of his broken sword.

The next thing Kirito knew a flying piece of heated iron was flying at his face. But Kirito's reflexes easily made it so it didn't hit his face. He got the shard of Iron with his left hand.

"Hot!" Kirito screamed as he dropped the piece of iron onto the ground.

"Sorry, sorry." Lizbeth apologized quickly as she ran over to Kirito and picked up the shard. Unlike Kirito hear gloves actually protected her hand from being burnt.

"You think you could warn me next time." Kirito jokes. "First time, you don't say." Kirito continues to joke around.

"I thought you knew what you signed up for." Lizbeth jokes along with Kirito. After a couple more minutes her repair was finished. "Here you go." Lizbeth said as she hand the sword over to Kirito.

"This is amazing, better than the original." Kirito exclaims over the sword as he examines it thoroughly. "What's this going to cost, an arm and leg." Kirito jokes as he pulls up his menu.

"Well… I was thinking you could have it for free." Lizbeth says shyly.

"Wow, are you coming onto me." Kirito jokes around again as his open up to their full extent.

"NO, NO!" Lizbeth shouts.

"Ohh, don't need another one." Kirito states.

"What?" Liz asks him.

"Nothing, what's is the catch?" Kirito asks.

"What does there have to be a catch, I can't just be a good person." Lizbeth jokes around even though it sound extremely serious to Kirito.

"Sorry, I guess I have been hanging around with info brokers too much." Kirito states while scratching his head. "So it's free then?" Kirito asks her.

"Oh no, no one's is that good of a person." Lizbeth teases Kirito as his mouth falls open. "I want you to come back here, if you need anything at all just come back." Lizbeth states.

"You got it." Kirito says as he sheathes his newly repaired sword. "Bye, bye." Kirito said as he leaves the blacksmith's shop.

XXXX  
Hope you all liked it!

I'm planning on using Lizbeth's character in a different way than the canon, so sorry to all the Kirito X Lizbeth people

If you have any ideas you can always PM me

Next Chapter will be out on Sunday

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	30. Hunter

January 16th

-Johnny Black-

A wide grin spread across Johnny's face as he heard something that he had been waiting to hear for a while, The ding of a level up.

 _Level 14 - level 15_

"Holy crap that took way too long." Johnny says as he pulls his knife out of the ground. He had been hunting the spiders found in the caves of floor six. The caves were nearly pitch black and he need to wear equipment that enhanced his night vision so that he could at least see around him.

Just barely. He could barely see past his fingertips, and that's while squinting.

"So this is what it feels like to be blind." Johnny says to himself as he tosses his knife up and catches it. "Must suck for them." He said as he throw his knife at a spider how's couple of meters away from him. Johnny had stocked up on equipment that would help him after the first time he had adventured into the caves.

That first time could a only be described in one way. Why? He couldn't see a single thing and it seemed like there was a spider around every corner. That is if could turn the corner without walking into a wall first.

To make it worse the spiders silent to him. He couldn't hear anything besides for his footsteps and breathing. It sucked that first time, but Johnny was smart the second time.

During his first session in the caves he had noticed that no one else had been in there. So he thought to capitalize on that fact and not run away from that dungeon. Johnny spent nearly half his col just getting what he needed to make the experience bearable.

Johnny had rabbit ears equipped. Though he would never walk into town with them on they did heighten his hearing and speed for a cut in his attack. At least he could hear the spider's movements if concentrated really hard. Maybe a little too hard but that was alright as long as he didn't die in this god forsaken world.

On his first visit Johnny had got a mob dropped called Ogre Spider Eyes. They creeped him the hell out at first. Just think about a spider crossed with an ogre, he had killed one of those.

Upon closer inspection he had learnt they they weren't just some extremely item, they were clothing, to be specific they were eyewear. After having his curiosity spiked he equipped the eyes and took a look in the mirror.

He had one sole thought, why were these in the game. Besides for just looking god awful, they increased his night vision by 10 points, just enough so that he could at least work in the caves with some vision.

It had been almost a week from when he leveled to level 14.

Johnny was spent.

"Why!" Johnny yelled as he threw his knife at the ground. He wasn't aiming for anything in particular he just wanted it to stick in the ground.

"Why did I have to get stuck in this world?" He asked seemingly no one.

"Fuck you Kayaba, you and your god complex!" Johnny yelled as he kicked the ground. Somehow he felt a little better after that. But that only last for a couple of seconds.

"I.. just." Johnny started but didn't have the will to finish. He reached down and pulled his knife out of the ground. He stood back up and walked over to a nearby cave wall and lean up against it.

He gripped his knife with his right hand and stab his left arm.

"Ahhh!" Johnny scream as the blade ripped through the pixels that made up his panted as he pulled the blade out of his arm. And that was the extent of the pain in this world. After pulling out the blade all that was left behind were red pixels that would return to their original color after a while.

No evidence that he had just stabbed himself.

Unlike the real world.

"Just wanted to escape from that life!" He scream in the cave for all to hear. But 'all' was just a couple of spiders. It seemed that no matter how hard he would run the real world catch up with him.

No matter what, the real world would follow him. For all he knew, this virtual world that Akihiko Kayaba created was the real world. No matter how hard he tried he couldn't shake the feeling of his life.

No, his past life.

He had sworn to himself that this world would house a different him, a better one per say. But it had to be a MMORPG.

Everything about the game disgusted him. After all he didn't by the game because it was a game, he brought it because it was a gateway into a new world. A new beginning.

It was too good to be true.

"Dammit!" Johnny yelled as he slid onto the ground. He knew he was done for today. Done.

Almost nothing left him confined to the real world. He had nothing, all he had was a sad pathetic life to live. Nothing to do, nothing to see, nothing to live for.

"If I have nothing to live for then why am I still alive?" Johnny asked himself.

The answer to his question was a simple one, the human need to struggle to stay alive.

Johnny Black opened up his menu and unequipped both the eyes and the ears. He ran his hand through his hair and stood up.

"Might as well get out of here." Johnny said as he started to make his way back to the entrance. He knew the caves well enough now, to not walk into walls. He was pretty far into the caves and as he walked out he heard a scream.

A player was screaming.

It was unwritten rule that no matter what a player would never let another player's health reach zero. And well Johnny was still human.

Johnny broken into a run as he tried to negative the caves to the best of his abilities. But when he got to the source of the screams he saw blue shards everywhere. Then he heard nothing.

What had killed the player, Johnny would never know because they had already left when he got there. Johnny walked over to the point of which the player died. Unlike usual he had found something at the point of where the player was killed.

In Sword Art Online when a player dies their inventory doesn't drop for the world to loot. If that would have been the case then there would have been a lot more of player kills. But there were a few exceptions to this rule.

All items that are need to complete a quest are dropped because there is a limited amount of them. A player's weapon, if not held by the player at the moment that they are killed. Any items stored in an external inventory like a backpack would also be dropped, along with the backpack.

Who ever the player was they had dropped a dagger and a satchel.

Curious, Johnny opened the satchel and looked inside. Knife after knife after knife. There was nothing else in the satchel, only to what Johnny assumed was the player's extra knives. Each one was worth at least 5000 col if not more.

Johnny picked up the satchel and the knife. He threw the satchel across his body and the knife in his inventory, just as any other player would. After everything is better, when it's free.

XXXX

So yeah, This is the start of a POV from a laughing coffin member.

If you're wondering I have to make a killer, so there's going to be some slightly sadistic events happening with him.

I realize that this is extremely heavy but I must do some things to make a well rounded character for my needs.

Next chapter will be up Shortly

-Kirk


	31. Hasty

January 19, 2023

-Clearers-

"Is everyone ready!" Diabel shouted over the scattered murmur. There was a slight pause in the commotion in front of the boss room door before everyone shouted yes or variations of it.

"Alright then let's go ahead." Diabel shouted as he pushed open the boss room doors.

They walked through the open doors as the boss spawned in.

The boss was named, Scoria, The Broken Minotaur. The Minotaur had a giant axe in it's hands and two knifes on its belt. The knives were for later, during its last health bar, or at least that's what is was for during the beta.

All of the knights stepped in front of the other players to form a wall of shields. The was more or less a place for DPS based builds to find behind. And the wall, you could barely call it a wall. It was broken up in strategic places so that the players running back and for would have multiple places to run to.

The walls were more like brigades. They were set up in strategic locations to block the bosses attacks and provide as much area as possible for the other players to attack from.

They had tried this strategy at the last field boss after the 6th floor boss raid. The boss battle against Kiyotaka had served as a catalyst. They now knew that they couldn't just go in guns blazing. They needed a plan and well that the 'wall' is what they came up with.

Everything had went smooth enough for the first health bar. There were a couple a players who had gotten hit by the boss, but alas at least this boss didn't one shot them.

That was how it went until one player got a little greedy. Much to his dismay the player wasn't a beta tester. He was a very much the opposite of a beater. He was the anti-beater and hated them with a passion.

Kibaou went out a little too long. He ambiguous when he had activated his sword skill. He activated a fifteen hit combo while most people activated a 5 hit combo. He wanted to squeeze as much attack out of his as possible.

In the first two and a half months in the game they had figured out that damage done to a boss, whether it be field or floor had some factor in loot distributing. Everyone knew about the last hit bonus which made it extremely hard for him to get it. I mean when there is 50 plus people going after the same thing, the chances for him decrease exponentially.

So he decided to try to get an item with damage rather than RGN luck. Kibaou had decide if he was going to be at a raid he might as well try for free loots. After all everything is better when it's free.

Kibaou had been there for a minute as he got all fifteen strikes off. But unluckily he had gained the boss's aggro. Almost every body was capable to hold off the boss for a couple of attacks.

But Kibaou need much more time than he could by himself. He was getting bombarded by attack after attack from Scoria. Kibaou would block an attack coming from above then the next thing he knew another was coming for the side. Kibaou had barely a fast enough reaction time to block the boss's hits. But it worked for a sliver a of time.

During all of this no one was running in to get help him. Not many people could stand him. One of the few was Diabel but even his patience was running thin. No one really liked him, it seemed. But still one person was about to go in and help him.

"You should help him." Asuna states trying to push Kirito to help him.

"No." Kirito says gripping his sword even more tightly.

"Oh, come on Kirito, I know you want to help out that jerk." Coper said mockingly.

"How about you go Coper." Asuna say back at him.

"Nah, I'm not about to go help lord beater over there." Coper exclaims

"Come on, I'll bake you cookies." Asuna teases him.

"Oh great Asuna's cookies, let me get my things." Coper says trying very hard to seem excited as he pulls out his Anneal Blade out of his scabbard. He starts to run out to assist the lost Kibaou.

"Now I wish I went out." Kirito whispers to Asuna.

"You know you always get some." Asuna says back.

Coper runs out just as the boss disarms Kibaou. Acting upon instinct, Coper jumps in front of Kibaou and blocks Scoira's next attack.

"You okay?" Coper asks just after the boss lifted her axe for another strike.

"I don't need your help." Kibaou starts as he grabs his longsword of the ground.

"So you want to be dead then?" Coper say rhetorically as he blocks the boss's axe for a second time.

Before Kibaou got a chance to retaliate, the other clearers were finally attacking the boss. Caught in confusion Kibaou back out of Scoira's range. Kibaou rotated his head in one quick motion to find the beater.

Coper had also taken the opportunity to back away. But unlike Kibaou he didn't have a single care in the world we he was.

The boss battle was incredibly smooth after everyone got back into formation. Even when the boss had its moves and attacks patterns change, the clearers were fast to come up with a counter.

The boss, Scoira fell relatively easy, having no secret aces or trick manoeuvres. Most of the players guess it was to cut them slack for how terrible the last boss battle was. Most of the players weren't horribly tired so the Knights of Glory had already left to activate the next floor. But their adventure was far from over, at least for today.

"Hey beater, I don't need your help." Kibaou said as he walked pasted Coper.

"So you'd rather die then." Coper asks him.

"No one likes you beaters." Kibaou says.

"Do you know what, the first time I heard the word beater I was reminded of Harry Potter." Coper states. "So I might be a beater, but your a god damn bludger." Copers says to Kibaou.

"You wanna fight." Kibaou says as he takes out his sword.

"I'm always up for a fight." Coper says as he unsheathes his sword. Coper extends it in front of him before he said, "I'll even give you the first shot."

Everyone who remained in the boss room were about to see how far Kibaou distaste for beta testers was willing to got to. Will he strike or not.

Coper knew he wouldn't attack, which was why he gave Kibaou the first strike. He doubted that Kibaou would turn orange for his cause. And luckily for him he was right.

"I'll get you next time." Kibaou said as he ran out of the boss room.

XXXX

Hope you all liked this chapter

Thanks to all who have favorited, followed and reviewed

Next chapter will be out next Sunday

Have a great day

-Kirk


	32. Hodgepodge

January 24, 2023

-Asuna, Kirito, Coper-

"Asuna." Kirito called out. "Over here." Kirito shouted.

"Coming." Asuna said as she sheathed her rapier.

They were in a dungeon on the 8th floor. Or more specifically a labyrinth. But this wasn't your typical labyrinth. It wasn't dark and underground with a Minotaur walking it's hallway. It was practically the opposite.

Floor eight was another forest floor like the fifth floor. But the dungeon on floor five was on the ground while on floor eight they were walking on branches. The eighth floor was a tall rainforest and the trees were at least three times the size of the trees found on floor five.

There were no guard rails or anything of the sorts and the fall was sure to be near fatal. Sword Art Online wasn't the type of game to make it so fall damage can't kill you. Sword Art Online was as close to the real world just with a game mixed in. And well if you fell a couple hundred of feet, you wouldn't be walking away without some scratches.

"Kirito!" Asuna yelled as she ran over to him. "What did you want?" She asks once she got within speaking distance.

"Coper found the way to the end." Kirito states as he points in the direction of which Coper had went.

"Great." Asuna say as ran her hands in each other, making on large clap. "Let's go." Asuna said as she started to walk towards the end of the dungeon.

She looked back to see Kirito seeming to be immersed in his thoughts. Asuna looked at him for a few seconds before calling out his name. "You coming, Kirito?" She asked as she saw Kirito return to the world of the living.

"What, yeah." Kirito said a little bit startled.

"You zoning out there." Asuna says teasing Kirito.

"Yeah, sorry." Kirito apologized as he scratches his head.

"No need to be besides we're even now." Asuna says. "And you also looked cute." Asuna teases Kirito.

"Hey, that's not nice." Kirito said as he ran up to Asuna.

The walked for bit, following Coper's footsteps. They had been walking for awhile and hadn't caught up to Coper yet. Kirito expected this as Coper knew how to move a navigate places making his travel extremely efficient.

Coper didn't really spend much time with them when Asuna was there but it wasn't like Coper spent much time at all with Kirito when they were traveling together. In fact they hadn't even made a party until Asuna came into the picture.

Kirito thought he didn't stay with them because he was jealous of him. I mean what fourteen year old wouldn't be jealous of his friend that has girls chasing him.

"Hey Kirito, can I ask you a question?' Asuna asks after walking for a bit.

"Sure." Kirito says instinctively.

"Why do you trust Coper?" She asks him.

This would have a stopped most people in their tracks but Kirito didn't even stop for a second. "If have no reason not to." Kirito states.

"Didn't he MPK try you the first time you guys met?" Asuna asks trying to get her facts straight.

"Yea." Kirito says as he turns his to face to face Asuna's.

"Aren't you worried that he's going to do that again?" Asuna asks him worryingly.

"That was at a different time." Kirito states. "Not really." Kirito answers her. He looks over to Asuna to see a concerned/ worried look on her face. "Don't worry, I'm a beater, I can take care of myself." Kirito states reassuring.

"I know but, I'm just afraid." Asuna says to him.

"I don't plan on dying anytime soon." Kirito states. "Come on it just heard some footsteps from in front of us, we should be getting close." Kirito says as he picks up his pace ever so slightly.

They continue to walk at Kirito's faster pace until they get past some leaves the were obscuring their line of sight. Kirito was hoping to find Coper on the other side but no luck. The other beater was nowhere to be found.

"Where's Coper?" Asuna asked as she looked around for a few seconds but with no luck.

"Don't know, maybe it was just my imagination." Kirito strugs of the supposed footsteps.

They walk for a little while longer in silence before Asuna broke the silence with a question. "Do you remember the last time we were here?"

"Yeah." Kirito says as he scratches the back of his head. "Didn't you push me off last time." Kirito said to Asuna.

"I did not!" Asuna exclaims. "You slipped." Asuna states.

"After you kicked me, I qualify that as you pushing me off!" Kirito exclaims. "At least you won't do it this time." Kirito thinks out loud. "That was one of my three deaths in the beta, thanks to you." Kirito says to Asuna.

"Your welcome." Asuna says cheerfully.

"Thanks." Kirito says sarcastically. In response to this Asuna runs up to Kirito and pushes him but grabs onto his coat. Asuna's actions resulted in Kirito's whole body jumping as well as Kirito's heart skipping quite a few beats.

"What was that for!" Kirito shouts after he regains the balance that he had lost.

"Come on Kirito, that's no way to treat a lady." Asuna says to him. "Didn't your parents teach you better?" Asuna asks rhetorically as she walks in front of him.

Kirito stood motionless in one place as Asuna slowly got farther and farther away from him. "They could have." Kirito thinks to himself.

Asuna turns around to see Kirito motionless and seemingly in a different world. "Kirito, you coming?" Asuna asks so he would come back to SAO.

Coming to his senses Kirito apologizes and says yes as he jogs to catch up to Asuna.

"What was that?" Asuna asks him.

"Just remembering something I'd rather not remember." Kirito states.

Asuna looks over to Kirito after hearing this and examines his face. She hadn't seen the look on his face many times but she knew what it meant. "Please don't ask anymore question." could easily be read off of Kirito expression.

Asuna feeling that it would be best for the both of them if Kirito told without her egging him to, she stayed quiet. That was until they heard yell from above.

It was from a certain beater. Maybe not her favorite beater but nevertheless one she would run to help. Though she may have disliked him a lot, she did not hate him. A friend of hers must at least be acquaintance for her because that what she wants her friend to at least be for Kirito.

XXXX  
Hope You all enjoyed!

Hope you all have a great day

If you have any ideas you can always PM me

Next Chapter will be out in a little bit

-Kirk


	33. Hurt

January 24, 2023

-Asuna, Coper, Kirito-

"Asuna, come on!" Kirito yells as he turns around to see she was a little ways behind him.

Kirito stops for a second for Asuna to catch up which doesn't take long due to Asuna's speed. Once she almost catches up to Kirito but once she gets into Kirito's reach he grabs her hand and pulls her along with her. At least until for the time that he was ahead of her.

As he knew, Asuna still was faster than him. Before long she was in front of him pulling him along. As they ran they heard two pairs of footsteps running ahead of them. The footsteps were considerably slower than Asuna's.

Kirito knew this but he also knew that he was slowing Asuna down, so he let go of her hand.

"Kirito." Asuna said right after Kirito let go of her hand. She turned around to see him standing right behind her. But that wasn't all that she saw when she turned around.

She saw a player in a hooded black trench coat. She could barely see the players face under the hood but she saw something underneath the players hood. Two red eyes concealed under a cloak of shadow.

"I don't like those eyes, they don't go with the coat." Asuna thinks to herself as she pulls out her rapier as starts to run at the player.

"No!" Kirito shouts as he holds out his right arm to stop Asuna. "I got this, go help Coper" Kirito states as he unsheathes his sword. "Go!" Kirito shouts once he sees that Asuna hadn't moved a single step.

"Okay, be safe." Asuna says as she turns around and runs away from the two players.

"You've got guts." The hooded player says once Asuna was gone. "But your last chance is just ran away with her." The male player says. "Allow me to introduce your killer, I am Xaxa, Xaxa Red Eyes." He says as he pulls out his estoc.

"Allow me to introduce myself then, I am Kirito, a beater." Kirito states.

"Haha, Kirito is it, the black swordsman." Xaxa chuckles. "I always up for a challenge." Xaxa says.

"Likewise." Kirito says as he gets into his irregular stances.

"It's showtime." Xaxa yells as he runs at Kirito.

Xaxa runs at Kirito with the full will to kill him. Kirito recognizes this and jumps out of the way of Xaxa estoc. Kirito again looks at Xaxa but notices something that he didn't notice last time. Xaxa's cursor was orange.

"You've done this before haven't you?" Kirito asks Xaxa. In Sword Art Online their is a colored cursor that appears above your head for other players to see along with your health. The cursor could be one of two colors, green or orange.

A green colored cursor was the basic cursor for SAO. Each player had a green cursor when they started the game and would remain that way unless they made it change to orange.

An orange cursor indicates that you have committed a crime such as player killing or harassing a player. The green will eventually return itself back to green after the first three acts but once you have committed your fourth then it would remain orange.

But you could change this back if you complete a quest. However if you commit a fifth crime then your cursor will remain orange indefinitely. When your cursor is orange you are restricted access into into town by the town guards. The town guards will continuously attack you until you leave or get killed.

"I'm definitely not afraid to do it again." Xaxa states as he runs at Kirito.

Instead of dodging the oncoming attack Kirito blocks with his sword. Their swords cross and Xaxa doesn't let as he continues to push Kirito's sword with his. Xaxa was obviously in control but that didn't mean that Kirito was falling back. Kirito still had power and managed to push Xaxa off of him.

"Are you sure you can win?" Xaxa asks rhetorically as he stretches his arm out in front of him.

"I can hold you off for long enough." Kirito states. This was Kirito first encounter with a orange player, or at least one that didn't fear have to kill another person. It seemed like Xaxa was having fun while doing so.

"Is that so, let's see if you can stand this." Xaxa says as he starts his next attack. Xaxa unleashes a four hit linear in front of Kirito but he easily dodged the attack by jumping back. But this was just phase one of Xaxa's assault as Xaxa started his next skill.

He launches a vertical at Kirito's left side and in response Kirito jumps right and throws a horizontal at Xaxa. Xaxa pulls back his estoc and easily knocks Kirito's strike off to the side and hits Kirito square in the chest. As a result of getting hit in the chest, Kirito gets knocked back and drops his sword on the branch.

Unluckily for Kirito they were on a tree branch and Kirito was nearly thrown off the branch and into an almost a certain death scenario. But yet he wasn't in a good position as he was still thrown of the branch but was able to grab a hold of a branch.

"Looks like the black swordsman has met his demise." Xaxa gloats. "Bye, bye, Kirito." Xaxa said as he readied his sword. But he was stopped.

Xaxa turn his head away from Kirito and looked into the distance. Then he jumped back and away from Kirito. And he did it just in time to as a spear flew through the spot where his head was a couple of seconds. As the spear flew through the air Xaxa's eyes followed as he began to recognize the spear.

"You always have to ruin mine fun, don't you, Kazuma." Xaxa shouts into the distance.

"Your fun involves killing people, I'm not about to let that happen." Kazuma says as he jumps from an adjacent tree branch onto Kirito's and Xaxa's.

Kazuma wields and spear and shield though he did not currently have his spear. He had short brown hair and dark green eyes. He also wore thick rimmed glasses and looked very formal despite being inside a video game.

"You won't kill anybody today." Kazuma states.

"You can't stop me." Xaxa states as he puts the end of his estoc in front of Kirito's face. He pulls his estoc and starts his next sword skill. But his sword was stopped by a flying shield.

"Yes I can." Kazuma says as he runs at Xaxa at full speed. Xaxa didn't even flinch as he saw Kazuma runs at him. This really didn't surprise Kirito as Kazuma had neither his shield or his spear.

But none of this mattered for Kazuma as he ran at Xaxa. Kazuma had a plan. His spear was just a little farther than Xaxa, so he would need a way to get behind Xaxa, which he had. His plan was probably the dumbest thing ever but with the little time that he had, it would do just fine.

Kazuma would use his right arm as a meat shield as he passed Xaxa. All was going according to plan he would pass Xaxa then grab his spear. That was if Xaxa didn't change anything.

Xaxa ready his sword skill with the most power and the longest cool down time. As Kazuma ran past Xaxa without slowing down, Xaxa unleashed his sword skill and it destroyed Kazuma right arm as he passed. Lucky for Kazuma the pain absorber made the pain it bearable, so Kazuma was still able to get past Xaxa and get his spear from of the branch.

He picks his spear and twirls it around with his one hand. He looks over to Kirito, who is still currently barely holding on to a branch for dear life and motions for Kirito to get up. But Kazuma did it in a way so that only Kirito would know what it meant.

Kirito start to hoist himself up as Xaxa started to talk to Kazuma.

"Reckless as usual." Xaxa states.

"Not reckless, I did manage to get my spear didn't I?" Kazuma says rhetorically.

"You're still going to lose, I still have the upper hand." Xaxa states as he extends his sword out in front of him.

"Are you sure about that?' Kazuma asks. In response Xaxa looks behind him to realize his fatal error. He hadn't left an eye on Kirito, so Kirito had been able to get up and retrieve his sword.

Without even saying a word, Kirito runs at Xaxa while Kazuma runs at him from the opposite direction. Realizing the he was being pinned from both sides Xaxa jumps off the branch he was currently on to another one and starts to run away.

Kirito was going to follow him until Kazuma stopped him. "You'll have your chance, just not now." Kazuma stated to Kirito.

"Thanks." Kirito thanks Kazuma.

"No worries, always willing to help." Kazuma smiles.

"Why do you have glasses." Kirito asks. In Sword Art Online everyone has perfect 20-20 vision, so glass have really no apparent upside.

"To remember the real world." Kazuma states. Right after Kazuma finishes his sentence they hear a scream in the distance.

"I have got help them." Kirito says.

"I'll go to." Kazuma decides. He picks his shield up and off the ground. "Did you lose your shield?" Kazuma asks him.

"Oh no." Kirito answers him.

"Well here, it can't hurt." Kazuma says as he pulls a shield out of his inventory and hands it over to Kirito.

"I guess." Kirito says as he equips the shield.

XXXX  
Well there you go, hope you all enjoyed

Have a great day!

The next chapters will be out next Sunday

See you next time

-Kirk


	34. Hysterical

January 24, 2023

-Asuna, Coper, Kazuma, Kirito-

Kirito and Kazuma start running towards where they thought the originated from. While they were running to what Kirito thought was Asuna's scream due to the feminine-esk scream, that Kazuma was faster than him.

But not by much, if Kirito didn't have a shield attached to his left arm he probably would have been faster. Even with the new piece of equipment Kirito was still able to keep up with Kazuma. Kirito thought he could have out ran Kazuma, if he had more experience with a shield that is.

They get past another bug and leafy overhanging branch to see the players in the distance. There were three players, much to Kirito's liking both of his fellow beaters were still alive. But there was another who was equally as shady as Xaxa.

The player was also wearing a black hooded coat. But instead of estoc, the player wielded a short dagger.

"Asuna!" Kirito yelled as soon as he saw them. Asuna was like Kirito in the fact that she too had been thrown off the edge and had to grab onto the side of a branch.

"Shh, damn it." Kazuma says as he breaks into a full fledged sprint. Kirito follows behind quickly as they approach the three players. Coper was currently dueling the third mysterious player.

Neither of them seemed to have the upper hand. Coper kept attacking with an onslaught of attacks while the orange player continuously dodges them. But all of this was about to change, not because of Kirito and Kazuma but because Asuna.

She had finally gotten out of her predicament and was running at the two dueling players. She was a bit of ways away so the orange player still had time to react. The orange player saw this and formulated a plan in a matter of seconds.

The orange player ran directly at Coper without a second of of hesitation. Taken aback by this Coper charged up an attack and unleashed it as soon as his target was within range. It hit the player's left shoulder but they player charged on, knocking Coper off his feet and as a result Coper had also let go of his sword.

The player to their knife and stabbed directly into Coper's stomach. The player let go of the knife and instead of standing up they pushed it farther into Coper.

As they all heard Coper's screams Asuna knock the player away from Coper.

"Coper, drink this." Asuna said as she dropped a health potion into Coper's hands. Right after she stood up to confront the player, who had also gotten up.

"You have no weapon, surrender now." Asuna said commanding him.

The player looked up and looked straight at Asuna's, making her flinch.

The player chuckled and said, "It's showtime." Immediately after awards the player dash directly at Asuna. Asuna jumped back but she had made a mistake. She had assumed that she was the target but she was wrong.

The killer picked up Coper's sword of the ground and starts stabbing Coper, who had just finished his drink.

Seeing this, Asuna takes action and blocks one of the oncoming blows.

The player glance up to see that Kirito and Kazuma had almost gotten to to them. In response to this he activates one of his skills, Sonic leap. Using he jumped from the branch that they were on to one above them, then started to run away.

"Coper are you okay?" Both Kirito and Asuna ask him.

"I'm fine, but who was that?" Coper asks.

"That my friends is Prince of Hell or Poh." Kazuma states.

"How do you know?" Asuna asks.

"He said his catchphrase, It's showtime." Kazuma answers her. "He must have been after you, Coper." Kazuma states.

"What, haven't meant that guy until today." Coper states dumbfoundedly.

"He kills for money, I've been hunting since second week of this game, he's really good at running." Kazuma states.

"I swear I'm going to kill him." Coper says.

"Don't worry, you'll be sure to get a punch when I catch him." Kazuma chuckles. "Come on let's go back, I would like to thank you guys, care for a drink." Kazuma asks the group.

"Sure." Kirito says and Coper and Asuna nod.

"Great there's this really great place on this floor, they have killer lemonade." Kazuma states as he starts to walk back.

"Kirito, why do you have a shield?" Asuna asks him.

"Knives don't do well against shields." Kirito states. "You can have it back." Kirito says as he takes of the shield.

"Keep it, you'll make more use out of it." Kazuma states.

"Thanks." Kirito says as he puts it into his inventory, it was still a little awkward to walk around with it.

XXXX

"Thanks." The group says as the receive their lemonades.

"This is really good." Asuna said after she to one drink then downed the full glass. "I have to get another one." Asuna states as she stands up to find the waiter.

"Told you." Kazuma chuckles.

"Yeah." Kirito says. "Why do you follow Prince?" Kirito asks him.

"I need something to take my mind off of my predicament, and hey I'm doing a deed." Kazuma states.

"Hate to leave so soon, but I'm going to find myself a new sword." Coper states after he stands up.

"Good luck." Both Kirito and Kazuma say in unison.

"Is he safe?" Kirito asks.

"We're in a town even if he was able to damage him he would have to deal with the guards." Kazuma says.

Coper walks outside and wonders around the market until he finds a stand with one handed swords. But before he could buy one someone approach from behind.

"It's showtime." Prince says to get Coper's attention. Coper hadn't heard Prince talk enough to realize who it was from voice, so he turned around. Before he could get a good look at Prince's face he gets punched in the face which knocks Coper onto the ground.

Prince picks Coper up off the ground around the throat and puts him in a headlock.

"You can't hurt me in a town." Coper states.

"You're right, but they can." Prince says as a couple of guards round a corner then run at him.

Prince knocks Coper's feet out from underneath him and grabs him by his foot.

"You can't possibly pick me up like this." Coper says.

In response Prince shows him a ring and says, "Killing has it's benefits."

One guard swings his sword at Prince of Hell but he lifts Coper up and uses him as a shield. The sword rips through Coper's chest and the guards stops his sword.

"Don't you like that loophole." Poh says as he starts to run out of the town. "We'll get you next time." He shouts in the distance.

Coper grunts from pain. He had lost three fourths of his health from one blow. "Ouch." He says to try to relieve so pain. "Hey Kayaba, fix that!" Coper shouts up to the sky.

XXXX

Thank you all for reading this chapter

Next one will be up shortly

If you have any questions just review or PM me.

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	35. History

January 26, 2023

-Diavel, Lynd, Saffi, Tito, Kirito, Tsubaki, Asuna-

"Thank you all for coming." Diavel says to the small group of players. "As you all probably know, it was I who invited you for this meeting." Diavel states. "Today I host the first raid scouting meeting."

"Bye Kirito." Asuna whispered into Kirito ears before she started to walk out. She hadn't been invited she was just 'walking' Kirito to the meeting. After hearing this Kirito looks over his shoulder and shows a slight smile as he waves goodbye.

"Hey Asuna wait up." Lynd said as he quickly caught up to her. "You can stay, not everyone came, we would be glad to have you." He states.

"Okay." Asuna says as she walks back to Kirito and takes a seat next to him.

They were all in the back of a bar. The rest of the bar was completely empty with the exception of a NPC. It was about two pm and almost everyone that would be on the eighth floor would be out grinding.

As Asuna toke seat Kirito glanced around to see where everyone else was. Diavel was leaning up against the bar while walking up towards him. Tsubaki and Tito were sitting at a table to the right of them, but they were on opposite sides of the table. Lastly Saffi was sitting on top a table to the left of them cross legged.

"Basically we're all here to formulate a plan to execute on the boss once we have everyone." Diavel states.

"And thus we have invited everyone here for specific reasons." Lynd states.

"Most of us will just be there as test subjects, but the one who will be actually formulating the plan will be Tsubaki." Diavel states.

"Me, Asuna, and Tito will be the ones attacking the boss to see it's attack patterns." Lynd says.

"I will make sure you don't get killed." Saffi butts in.

"Kirito, one of our shield users who was going to attend didn't show up so if you could-." Diavel starts to say.

"I can, just expect me to as good as you." Kirito interrupts Diavel's formality.

"Great, then me and Kirito will protect Tsubaki." Diavel states.

"Any objects, if not then we'll head out immediately." Lynd says as he pushes himself off of the support of the bar.

"I have one question, who was the name of the shield user?" Tito asks.

"Heathcliff." Diavel states. In response to this Tito shakes his head up and down slightly, as if he already knew the answer to the question he asked.

All of the players get up before Kirito and Asuna, leaving them in the back. But at least this way they can be free to talk.

"Where's Kibaou?" Asuna asks.

"I don't know, maybe he got scared away by the four beaters." Kirito chuckles.

XXXX

As they round the corner to open up the boss, they hear the door start to creep open. In response Asuna was the first to get around the corner.

"Hey stop." Asuna yells as she starts to sprint towards the player.

The player was wearing a long green dress, which indicated to Asuna that the player was female. As she turned around, Asuna's assumption was ratified. The girl looked to be twelve maybe thirteen. She had long brown hair that stretched to the middle of her back.

As she turned around there was one thing Asuna noticed, something that she hadn't seen in a long time. As she said hi the player had a smile that stretched all the way across her face.

"What's your name?" The female player asked as the rest of them caught up to Asuna.

"Asuna." She answers.

"I'm sorry but you'll have to beat me in a duel if you want to stop me." The player states.

"I accept." Asuna says as she swiftly opens her menu.

"I love competition." The player says as she accepts the request. "So what are you doing up here." She asks Asuna.

"We're scouting out the boss." Asuna answers her. "You?" She asks.

"I love a good fight." She states. "Now I get two for the price of one." She states.

"I don't go down that easily." Asuna says as she pulls out her rapier. As she does this the count down timer above them hits zero and finally Asuna's competition pulls out her sword.

But as soon as her sword realizes itself from the scabbard, she lets go of it. The momentum keeps it going up but not for long.

While this is happening, Asuna quickly closes the gap as she rushes at the player.

Once the player's sword hits the peak of its short flight, she grabs the handle and trust diagonally downwards. Where she was aiming the was nothing but it was in path of Asuna's run.

Asuna realizing that the sword would cut straight through her body if she did nothing, she tried to stop. But she was going to fast, though she did manage to slow down enough that the sword only went through her leg, not her body.

This resulted in enough damage to still net the younger girl the win.

As she picked her sword up she said, "You were saying." She said this though playfully and with a huge grin across her face. Not one of haha great wreck but enjoyment.

"Now if you'll move out of the way , I have a boss to kill." She states as she starts to walk away.

"Not so fast, I would like to challenge you." Tito states as she gets sent yet another message.

The female player swiftly accepts then she quickly puts distance between her and Tito.

"I have always wanted to duel you since I first saw you fight." The female player states. "It's an interesting way to fight, your Battoujutsu." She says.

"It choose me, or rather I choose it." Tito states.

"Well lets see if I can summon up the strength to win." The player says as she unsheathes her sword and the timer hits zero.

Tito immediately runs at the girl with his sword sheathed as usual. Once he reaches her she unleashes a flurry of punches at her. She did well to dodge the first couple of punches but the fourth on connected with her face and she was thrown backwards.

"That one hurt." The girl says as she stretches her face. "I can tell you're not going easy on me." The girl states.

"What you want me to." Tito asks her.

"Nah, I love a good challenge." She states.

Once again Tito lunged at her with hands out in front of him. He attacks with the same attack as before but this time he only managed to graze the side of her face.

"Better luck next time." She says grinning.

Annoyed, Tito runs at her but he had a different attack in mind. He was going to use hit ace, Battoujutsu. As he gets into range he yells, Raikiri to activate his sword skill.

The girl jumped back to avoid the attack but still got hit by the lightning that erupted from Tito's sword. She fell to her knees as the Raikiri's lightning shocked her whole entire body. But she had felt worse pain. This was nothing like her usual feeling of emptiness, is felt liked her whole was paralyzed.

But she knew it wasn't, and she got back up within only a couple of seconds.

"Is that the best you got?" She gasped out.

"I can do better if you want." Tito says as he unsheathes his sword then starts to run at the girl. He unleashes his Raikiri once again but this time the girl's dodge was successful.

"Looks like you've met your match." The girl says after she dodges Tito's sword.

"You can't dodge it forever." Tito states.

"Very true." The girl says as she starts to run at Tito. But before doing so she sheathed her sword. "But I've got an ace too." She says as she gets into range of Tito's attack.

Immediately once the girl is within his range, Tito once again unleashed his ace. This time it was at point blank range, so even if she avoided, which he knew she would the girl would still great another taste of the lightning.

As Tito suspected, the girl was able to avoid his attack but was still hit by the lightning. Though this time it did not stop her, not even for a second. She knew what it felt like this and she prepared herself to get shocked again.

In order to evade the attack, the girl jumped over Tito. As Tito turned around he was met with a flurry of punches. The third punch connected with the middle of his face then the fourth one hit his chin which sent him backwards.

"You copied my attack." Tito said once he realized that everything was the same about her punches and his.

"You got that right." The female player states as she runs at Tito. But one thing she couldn't copy is the size advantage that Tito has on her. Tito was at least a head taller then her, which made it so his reach longer than hers.

Tito unleashes his punches first but was stopped after his connect with the young female player. She caught his fist with her left hand, stopping him in his tracks.

"Better luck next time." She said as she grabbed her sheathed sword and unsheathed it just as Tito would have done. Unlike one that would come from Tito, her's didn't glow or erupt with lightning. Yet the damage it did upon impact with Tito was enough for her to win the match.

"Good game." The female player said as she held out her hand for Tito to hoist himself up with.

"What's your name?" Tito asked as he grabbed her hand.

"Ran." She answered him.

"Thanks Ran, you just taught me that I can't always fall back on my battoujutsu." Tito states to the young girl.

XXXX  
Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Have a great rest of your weekend

Next Chapters will be out next Sunday

If you have any questions or Ideas, feel free to PM me or Review

-Kirk


	36. Hidden

January 26, 2023

-Diavel, Lynd, Saffi, Tito, Kirito, Tsubaki, Asuna, Ran-

"So I'll be facing this boss now, you're welcome to join if you like." Ran says as she turns towards and runs to the boss room door.

"Ran is ranning." Kirito says to Asuna. He looks over to Asuna to her shake her head from left to right but she did have a slight grimace.

"Okay, let's go Kirito." Asuna says as she starts to walk up but gets stopped by Tsubaki, who had moved in front of them during the last duel. Kirito follows Asuna, but gets stopped also.

"What are you doing?" Kirito asks Tsubaki.

"I need to see if she is who I think she is." Tsubaki states. "Hey Ran." She shouts. "Why were you so quick to duel?" Tsubaki shouts.

"Because some things-." Ran says before she gets cut off.

"Can be only shared by fighting." Tsubaki finishes Ran's statement. "You got stuck in her to." Tsubaki states.

"Yeah." Ran says.

"Did Merida also?" Tsubaki asks.

"No, she had appointment." Ran answers her.

"Just you me then." Tsubaki says.

"Um, I thought we were going to take out the boss." Saffi says interrupting their conversation.

"Oh, sorry, we can talk later." Ran says as she turned to face the boss room doors. They had already been open slightly but they can't see inside. They all met before opening up the doors all the way.

As they walked in the first thing that each one of them noticed was that the boss room was a lot gloomier than usual. Instead of the usual floors that they walked on, they were walking on dirt. The shoes stuck to the ground as they walked. Then they saw the boss start to materialize.

The boss they were facing was minuscule compared to the to others they had seen. The boss that stood in front of them were about their size.

"Attack it now!" Kirito said as he started to run at the boss. He had faced this boss in the beta test. He got to floor eight the most out of anyone. In fact only two other people ever made it to this boss. But they all had died on the first attempt.

As soon as Kirito got close enough to see the boss's name, the boss barfed. It was how Kirito had expected, it was the same as it was in the beta. In the beta the boss would continuously barf as zombies crawled out of her barf.

The zombies themselves weren't that devastating, each of their attacks had done about a fourth of Kirito's health bar, which even less than the kobolds on floor one. But when you have upwards of five attack you, you can't survive for long.

Kirito stopped once he saw the boss's name, Morana, the Dead Rusalka. Same as the beta, so far nothing was different from the beta. Kirito would be okay with this fact but in the beta they didn't get Morana to half health.

"Guys, zombies are going to crawl out of her barf." Kirito states.

"We can't rush it, we need a plan." Asuna states.

"I have a plan, rush it." Ran says as she starts to run at the boss. She dodged the first zombie but the second one completely blocked her path so she stabbed it with her sword then pushed it off to the side thinking it would die. She was wrong.

The zombie got back up then slashed her back. She screamed in agony and turned around to try to slash at the zombie. Her slash connected but it still wasn't enough to bring the zombie to explode. As zombies started to rise from all around her, it was apparent that she was surrounded.

"Diabel." Kirito says while getting ready to come to Ran's safety.

"Let's go." Diavel says as he starts to run with Kirito not too far behind.

"Wait up." Asuna said as she started to run also.

"Asuna, can you clear a path!" Diavel shouts.

"Yeah." Asuna said as she started to full on sprint. She jumped over the two male players then continued her sprint until she got to the zombie hoard. She jabs the first zombie five times before it exploded then she dodged the second one.

"Saffi, headshot it." Diavel orders. Almost immediately afterwards a shuriken whizzed past Kirito's head and into a zombie behind Asuna.

Taking this opportunity Asuna spins with her rapier outstretched, which gives her space between her and the zombies.

"There you go!" Asuna shouts once she has cleared somewhat of an entrance. The entrance wasn't big enough for the both of them to travel, in fact it was barely enough for one to get through.

"Kirito, you go through." Diavel says to Kirito.

"I don't think I can, this shield is slowing me down to much." Kirito states.

"Then drop it!" DIavel shouts. Almost immediately after hearing this Kirito drops the shield.

"I can't run through that." Kirito states.

"Jump over it, use me as launching pad." Diavel says. As he slides down to give Kirito an adequate human stepstool. Without even slowing down, Kirito runs off of Diavel and over the zombie horde. He runs over to Ran and Tito, who seems to have fought his way to the middle of the horde.

"Tito, activate your Raikiri to blow enemies away." Ran tells Tito.

"What?" Tito asks dumbfoundedly.

"Use the lightning of your Raikiri to keep them off of us." Ran clarifies herself. "Kirito, you and I will rush the boss." Ran states.

"What about everyone else?" Kirito asks.

"Sorry, your girlfriend can't make it over that horde." Ran states. "You all ready?" Ran asks.

"Let's go." Tito says.

They all three rush the boss until a line of zombies stop them from advancing.

"Raikiri!" Tito shouted as he activated his ability. Lightning flew everywhere. Kirito felt it surge through his body. But it did what it was supposed to, the zombies in front of them felt to the ground. They may have not been dead but they were hurt enough that the players could pass through them unscathed.

"You go ahead, I got this." Tito said as he sheathed his sword. But right as he did a zombie slashed him in the back. Before was able to turn around he saw a shuriken fly into a target behind him.

"I'm fine." He assured them.

"Let's go." Ran says. In response Kirito nods.

They both run through the supposedly paralyzed zombies and to the boss. The boss took no note of them beginning there. Though I guess no one would really if they were throwing up nonstop.

Taking this opportunity, both Kirito and Ran rush the boss. Without much resistance they stabbed the boss. The boss exploded but not the usual blue shards.

The explode as it's puke covered the surrounding area.

"Ah, grossgrossgrossgross." Ran says as she tries to wipe of the puke. Kirito was also covered in puke but it wasn't real life and it's not like the puke could make him puke in the game.

"One good thing about Sword Art Online, you can't puke, it's a pregnant ladies dream." Kirito thought as he ran of to Ran. "Never dealt with this before?" Kirito asked as he started to help Ran clean herself off.

"NO." Ran states.

"Kirito!" Asuna said as she ran over. "You okay?" She asks.

"Yeah, just mortified." Kirito states. But just then all the puke and zombies started to cluster together. Once it was all together huge Zombie troll thing emerged.

XXXX

Thank you all for reading this chapter

The next one will be up later today

If you have any questions PM or review

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	37. Haunt

January 26, 2023

-Diavel, Lynd, Saffi, Tito, Kirito, Tsubaki, Asuna, Ran-

"RUN!" Diavel shouted. Only Asuna and Ran were fast enough to get away from the boss. Kirito had tripped as he looked at the boss, the boss looked back.

The boss was gigantic, easily bigger than the any of the other bosses he had faced. The boss was a zombie troll or something of the sorts. Morana, the Walking Grave was the boss's name after it transformed.

"Kirito!" Asuna shouted as she looked back to see that he was not behind her. She started to run towards Kirito and Morana but before she got to them, Morana picked up Kirito and threw him vertically into the air.

But Kirito had one saving grace, as Morana picked him up he still had hold of his sword. After Morana released him she had opened her mouth as if she was going to eat him. But Kirito wasn't about to die yet, not without a fight a least.

If there was one thing he had learned from Sinon while in partied with her, is that she was an insane at throwing knives even at moving objects. So if she could hit a bee out of the air with a knife, he could hit a zombie troll with a sword.

Once Kirito reached the apex his midair escapade, he grabs his long sword with of his hands and throws it at the boss. Kirito watched as it flew into the boss's eye. The boss rotate her head down in agony.

This allows Kirito's fall to land on top the boss instead of inside her. He bounces of the top of Morana's head then on to the ground.

"Ouch." Kirito said as he stood up. But before he could become aware of his surroundings he was punched.

Kirito flew across the room and into a wall.

"OUCH!" Kirito said even louder than the last one. He hand about a sixteenth of his health left.

"You need a hand." A female voice says as she holds out her hand to Kirito.  
Kirito looks to see Saffi. "Sure." Kirito says as he grabs her hand and uses it to propel him upwards. It wasn't the fastest thing in the world, probably due to Saffi's low strength level but he got up eventually.

"You need a health pot." Saffi says as takes out one.

"No thank you, I have some of my own." Kirito states as he reaches into his jacket and grabs one. Kirito could hear Asuna calling his name in the distance as she ran in his direction. BUt she wasn't the next person to get to Kirito.

"Here you go." Tsubaki says as she hands Kirito his shield. "Do you have an extra sword?" SHe asks.

"Yeah." Kirito says as he takes out his back up sword.

"Good." Tsubaki says as the rest of the remaining players reach them. "Well rush the boss in two groups, Kirito you'll have Asuna and Tito, and Diavel you'll have Ran and Lynd." Tsubaki states.

"Alright." Kirito and Diavel say in unison.

"What about you and Saffi?" Lynd asks.

"Saffi will cover your heads, as for me I'll be analyzing the boss." Tsubaki states.

"You heard her, let's get going." Diavel says as he turns towards the boss.

The boss was still having trouble with Kirito's sword.

Both Kirito and Diavel lead their groups towards the boss but Kirito's was the group to draw the aggro. The boss launch an fist at Asuna but Kirito blocked it with his shield. Unfortunately for him he was knocked up against another due to the strength of the boss.

"Not again." Kirito said as he stands back up.

"Kirito!" Asuna screams in the distance.

"I'm fine!" He screams back.

Again Tsubaki and Saffi got to Kirito first.

"I'm sorry." Kirito states.

"It's fine, I'll sub in for you, done enough." Tsubaki states.

"NO, I can still fight." Kirito argues.

"Don't worry, its weak points are all too apparent, at least for me." Tsubaki says.

"I'll protect you, no need to worry." Saffi says.

"No I need to-." Kirito starts to speak but get interrupted.

"I have a plan, everyone will be fine." Tsubaki interrupts Kirito.  
With that Tsubaki unsheathes her sword and joins the fray.

"Everyone stop attack, I need to draw its aggro." Tsubaki says as soon as she reaches everyone else.

"So what do you think her plan is?" Kirito asks Saffi.

"She's going to stab its other eye." Saffi states.

"How do you know?" Kirito asks.

"Cause that's what I would do." Saffi states.

"So why wouldn't you throw a shuriken at the eye." Kirito asks yet another question.

"A shuriken wouldn't do enough, and I'm not that good with knife throwing yet." Saffi states.

"I have a friend how's great with knife throwing." Kirito states.

"Sinon, she is really good, she's just lacking." Saffi states.

"How?" Kirito asks

"She didn't predict where my shuriken was going." Saffi states.

While Saffi and Kirito were chatting away, Tsubaki was enacting her plan. First she needed to get the aggro on to her. After all it was easier for to do than to tell someone her plan. She told everyone to stop attacking and run away from the boss. Only Tito and Lynd took more convincing than the others.

In order for her plan to work she need to get up to a point of which if she threw her sword it was sure to hit. She dodged a fist then used her sonic leap to jump high it into the air but she was just a couple of meters shy.

She had an alternate plan to get to where she need to be. "Diavel, I need you help." She said once she land back on the floor.

"What do you need?" Diavel asks

"I need someone to jump up off of, all I need is a couple of meters." Tsubaki states.

"Okay, is right here good." Diavel says.

"Couldn't be better." Tsubaki says as she backs up so that she could have a running start.

Before running she thought only one thought, "Lend me your strength, Charlotte." She took of at the fastest speed she could have gone and then jump off of Diavel which provided her with a couple of extra meters.

Once she reached the top of her jump she threw her Charlotte at the zombie's other eye. Once again the zombie troll screamed in agony. Tsubaki landed safely on the ground and looked up at the boss. As she thought the boss was an entirely a sight based mob and now it had sense of direction.

"Attack at will!" Tsubaki yelled to give all of them the go ahead. With that boss fell down easily and without much resistance.

"Kirito!" Asuna yelled once the boss had finally exploded. "Don't scare me like that." SHe said.

"Sorry." Kirito said as he met up with Asuna.

"Hey Black Swordsman, thanks." Ran said

"Don't mention it." Kirito said.

"You can't be that reckless." Asuna said.

"Like you would stand by and watch another die." Kirito snickered.

XXXX

Thank you all for reading

Hope you have a great day!

Next chapters will be up on Sunday

If you have any suggestions feel free to PM or review

-Kirk


	38. Hazard

January 31, 2023

-Sinon and Tito-

"Come on Tito, you have to go." Sinon says trying to push Tito into coming with her.

"No, I have to somewhere I need to-." Tito starts to try to wiggle his way out but he gets interrupted.

"Be, no come on, you're not missing out on this." Sinon states as she grabs his arm and walks through the warp.

They warped to floor nine which was a floor which after the main town was just one huge rocky field. It would have been the perfect place for Kayaba to put a stone hedge in.

"But, I have-." He says but gets cut off again.

"Trust me, it won't be a waste of your time." Sinon states. "Come on, hurry up or well be late." Sinon says as she walks in front of Tito and motions for him to follow her. Giving up, Tito obliques and catches up to her.

They were going to the second raid scouting meeting. This time Sinon got invited since Saffi wasn't able to attend. Both Sinon and Tito entered the bar at which the last one was hosted in. As they enter a tall gray haired man walked out of the bar.

Right as Tito saw this, Tito tried to turn around and follow the player but Sinon grabbed him.

"You're going through with this, okay?" Sinon says as she lets go of him. Then finally walk through the doorway.

As they walked in, there was only a couple things Tito noticed. One was that they were the last people to arrive. He also noticed that there was two people in the bar who he hadn't seen before. One of which was talking to Kirito and the other one was sitting in the corner keep a close eye on the other one. They incredibly similar, if Tito would have been drunk he would thought he would been seeing two of them.

But as Tito's stared went on and on he noticed that the two drastically different. The one talking to Kirito had a very formal dress coat on that matched the rest of his attire. He was standing perfectly still without a single quiver.

The one in the corner was completely different story. His hair was just about as disheveled as it could be and he had on the same clothes that he probably spawned in with. The more Tito stared at the player the more he noticed that the player couldn't stay still. Every couple of seconds he would scratch his hair and his whole body was uncontrollably shaking.

But as Sinon walked in she noticed the room in a completely different way. She noticed who everyone was divided into different groups. Diavel and Lynd were standing in the front talking to each over a drink. The table closest to the entrance hosted two people. She didn't recognize either of the female players but she was pretty sure that she had seen one of them at a boss raid. But none of this was compared to the other three players she saw.

Or shall she say two because she didn't recognize one completely. Kirito was sitting down while he was talking to a player who was apparently wearing a suit. Standing next to Kirito was Asuna, if you could call that standing. Asuna was practically leaning Kirito.

Not liking this Sinon walks over them while Tito grabs the closest available seat.

"Hey Kirito." Sinon says as she walks over to him.

"Hey Shinon." Kirito says combining her two names accidentally. He hoped that she wouldn't notice, after all her reason for entering this world was to get out of reality.

"Who's this." Sinon asks nonchalantly.

"He's Kazuma, and this is Sinon." Kirito says introducing both of them. Then Asuna tells him on the shoulder and whispers something in his ear, In response Kirito chuckles a little bit then turns his attention to Diavel and Lynd.

"Okay everyone, give a warm welcome to Ran and Sinon, both of them will be joining us for the first time." Lynd states.

"Everyone know what we are doing?" Diavel asks. With a couple of yes Diavel says for everyone to get going but asks for Kirito to stay behind.

"You okay with using a shield?" Diavel asks him.

"Yeah, I've been practicing but I'm still not doing so good." Kirito states.

"Awesome, we may not need but it all depends on the boss." Diavel says as they walk out of the bar.

But he wasn't the only one who was stopped.

"I n-need to talk to yoou." The shaky man says to Kazuma.

"I have nothing to say to you." Kazuma states before walking away.

"I will tell you, and you listen." The man says.

"I'd like to see that happen Yuuma." Kazuma says.

"MY NAME IS ZACK!" Zack shouts.

"Sure it is." Kazuma says as he walks out of the bar.

XXXX  
"It's a breath attack!" Asuna screams at Kirito. Kirito looks up at the boss as the blue charges up its attack and unleashes it at Kirito. Without much time to response with Kirito raises his sword to deflect it. But nothing ever goes as intended, at least not for Kirito.

His sword did end up deflecting the hit upwards but after his sword as knock out of his hands. But luckily he wasn't on his own, he had other players near him. Before the dragon could unleash her claws through Kirito Kazuma got in front of him.

"You okay?" Kazuma asked as he deflected the bosses claws.

"Yea, just need to work on that." Kirito says.

Their scouting mission was going well so far. The were up against Watatsumi, the broodmother. The dragon easy enough, except for the fact that if they want to even get close to hitting the dragon they had to jump.

"It should have one more attack left." Tsubaki states.

"Lets try something different." Ran shouts over everyone.

"Diavel, Kazuma, and Tito flank right, Kirito and Lynd attack head on, and Asuna sneak attack it." Tsubaki yells orders to everyone.

"You still good Sinon?" Rans asks.

"Yeah." Sinon answers.

The begin to carry out the plan and would have finished if it wasn't for an unexpected quest. Right as Diavel, Tito and Kazuma reached Watatsumi, they heard a shout from the entrance of the boss room.

"HEY!" The player screams. Not everyone turned around but a couple did. Both Tsubaki and Ran turned around to see the player. Both had recognized the player but neither of the have ever spoken to him. It was the shaky man from the bar.

"HEY YU!" He screams. "I foound yoou." He said as he took out his spear.

XXXX

Hope you all enjoy this chapter

Zack will be my last OC for a while

If you have any question PM me

Next Chapters will be uploaded soon.

-Kirk


	39. Hegemony

January 31, 2023

-Diavel, Lynd, Sinon, Tito, Kirito, Asuna, Tsubaki, Ran, Kazuma, Zack-

Kazuma turned around to face Yuuma. "You don't have to this Yuuma." Kazuma said.

"MY NAME IS ZACK!" Zack shouts at Kazuma. "YOU WOULDN'T LISTEN TO ME OTHERWISE!" He shouts as he starts to run at Kazuma.

Luckily for Kazuma, he was nearly halfway into the boss room. But unluckily for him the boss wasn't dead yet.

The boss charges up another breath attack while Kazuma's attention was at Zack.

"Kazuma, look out!" Kirito shouts as he starts to run to Kazuma. Kazuma was between Zack and Watatsumi, probably the only two that are of actually danger to Kazuma. Before Kirito could make it to Kazuma, the boss unleashed its attack.

But Kazuma wasn't alone, he had both Tito and Diavel by his side." Diavel jumped in front of the oncoming attack while Tito jumped and attacked the dragon.

"You handle him, we've got the boss, got it." Diavel states to Kazuma.

"Yeah, thanks." Kazuma says.

On the other side of the boss room Ran, Sinon and Tsubaki were safe from harm. Sinon started to run but was stopped by Tsubaki.

"What are-." Sinon started to speak but got cut off.

"Shh." Ran hushes Sinon. "Final move." She says as she looks up at the dragon. Watatsumi mouth was glowing a different color than before. "Tsubaki any ideas?" She asks.

"If mythology is correct then it is going to have something to do with water." Tsubaki states.

"Do you have any counter measures then?" Sinon asks.

"Yes, one." Tsubaki states. "Diavel, doge the next attack!" Tsubaki shouts.

Diavel acknowledges then speaks to Kazuma. "Move." He says to Kazuma. Immediately both Kazuma and Diavel do as they're told and both of them dodge the boss's attack. But that wasn't the only attack that would come at Kazuma.

Just as fast a the boss's last attack, Zack jabbed his spear at Kazuma.

Kazuma blocked it with his shield then backed up. "You really going to kill me?" Kazuma asks."

"N-no, but I will n-knock you down until we understand each other." Zack responded. With that said Zack starts to twirl his spear with his left hand.

"That's pretty good, you finally found a replacement." Kazuma comments on Zack's proficiency.

"Shut up Yu." Zack snaps at Kazuma.

"You haven't changed one bit have you." Kazuma states.

"I'll show you how much I've changed." Zack says as he stops twirling his spear and grabs it both hands and swings it at Kazuma.

Kazuma blocks it with his spear but he wasn't expecting for Zack to keep pushing through or at least not attacking while his spear was blocked. Zack kicks Kazuma in the leg causing his cursor to turn orange. Then without regard for the color change he uses the brief moment of Kazuma's unstableness to push his shield to his left and and jabs it at Kazuma

Acting upon instinct, Kazuma pushes his shield to his left to hit the spear off course but Zack had predicted this. Zack slide his right hand up the spear and pushed with his left. The result was that his spear did a complete 180 and had pushed Kazuma's shield out of his hand.

"N-Now we're even." Zack said.

"So you'll go orange to tell me, well guess what, I'll never forgive you." Kazuma states to Zack.

"Then I'll cut you down until you listen." Zack states.

"I'll never listen to you." Kazuma says back at Zack.

"You will listen to me once you realize that she'll n-never come back." Zack states as he raises his spear. Zack brings down his spear right into Kazuma's. The two spears collide and neither of the let go of the stand still they just created. Both push into to it.

"I've beat you once, I can do it again." Kazuma states.

"I'll like to see you try." Zack states as he kicks Kazuma's leg.

Kazuma jumps back but not before Zack jumps up and does a complete 360 with his leg outstretched. At the end of the 360, Zack's foot connected with Kazuma's face and he was brought to the ground.

Then Zack twirls his spear, and brings it down on Kazuma spears which makes it so Kazuma lets go of it and it flies a couple of meters away.

"Looks like I'm better." Zack states.

"We'll see." Kazuma says as he prepares for the next swing. Zack grabs his spear both hands and brings it down to where Kazuma's leg would have been but Kazuma swiftly dodges it at stands back up.

"So you'll hurt me." Kazuma states.

"I can't undo my mistakes, but keeping a grudge against me will only leave you with mistakes." Zack states.

"I'll never listen to you, Yuuma." Kazuma states.

"MY NAME IS ZACK!" Zack shouts as he he uses his spear to cut Kazuma's cheek.

"Hey, stop!" Kirito shouts as he gets in between them.

"Get out of my way, or do you want to taste the spear also." Zack says to Kirito.

"I can't just stay back as I watch him get hurt." Kirito states.

"You should know when to stop, Black Swordsman." Zack states. "Have you ever fought someone that's left handed?" Zack asks Kirito.

"Not really." Kirito states.

"Well, you about to have fun then." Zack states as he starts to twirl his spear. In response to this Kirito gets into a defensive stance. Then Zack brings down his spear onto Kirito's sword. Kirito blocks it and stays firm but Zack rotates his sword and impales it into Kirito left shoulder.

"AWW." Kirito shouts as he falls.

"N-Now stay out of my way." Zack states. He pushes Kirito out of the air then twirls his spear and hits a knife out of the air. The knife was directed at him and was thrown by Sinon.

"That includes you too." Zack shouts to Sinon.

"Yuuma, leave while you still can, if you kill me then I doubt you'll be able to get out of this boss room not in handcuffs." Kazuma states.

Zack looks around at everyone and he realized that Kazuma was right but that doesn't mean he was going to back down. He looked more and saw the boss. Watatsumi was currently in a duel with the Battoujutsu master. He looked at the boss's health and realizes that the boss was almost down.

Then he fabricated a plan. Once the boss explodes he would run, the blue shards that would come from the dragon would provide for an excellent cover.

"I'm n-not afraid, I'll take you all on." Zack states.

"Your stutter tells us otherwise." Kazuma states. Without even thinking, Zack runs over to Kazuma and hits him with the unsharpened end of his spear. Then he jumps up into the air and does another 360, so that his foot connects with Kazuma's face. He knocks Kazuma to the ground and consequently out.

"Who's next." Zack states as he lands back on the ground. He looks around to see that basically every player with the exception of Tito had their weapons drawn and aimed at Zack. But before they could start to attack him the boss exploded.

Taking this opportunity Zack ran out of the boss room at one of the fastest speeds any player has reached. The only person they had seen who is faster was Asuna, that wasn't by much.

Asuna runs over to Kirito and asks if he is okay as she takes out a health potion. Kirito says he is fine but refuses the potion. Kirito stands back up and walks over to Kazuma while Sinon also walks over to him.

"Thanks you two." Kazuma says.

"What was that?" Kirito asks.

"That folks, is my brother, Yuuma." Kazuma states.

"What did he want?" Sinon asks.

"That is a story for another time." Kazuma says as he picks up his shield.

XXXX

Thank you all for reading this chapter

I am going on vacation and I am not sure if I'll have wifi so I'm just going to upload of the chapters I have currently wrote

Hope you all have a great day

Get ready for the onslaught of chapters!

-Kirk


	40. Housebreaker

February 5, 2023

-Johnny Black-

Johnny was blowing on his hands. Did floor ten have to be a snowy forest? This thought flew through his mind each time he blow his hands. At least he had manage to get gloves before going on this adventure.

Just imagine climbing from tree to tree without gloves on. Johnny would have frostbite or whatever is close to it in the game.

Currently Johnny was flowing a player from the trees above him or her, Johnny didn't really get a good look at the player. After all if the player got a look at him then his whole operation would be trashed.

Johnny though the player was male. From what he could make out the player, the player had short hair and at least seem to have no assets worth noting.

But this was not the reason of Johnny following the player. The reason for following the player was a simple one, the player had on a satchel. Johnny was going to attempt to steal away the satchel as clean as possible. Johnny did not want to kill the player.

But if was going to survive in the death game known as, Sword Art Online he would have to steal from the player. But he couldn't just up to the player and steal the satchel, he would have to do something more planned.

Granted this wasn't the first time Johnny Black Was going to steal from a player. He had found that even though he wasn't gaining the levels while doing this, the col reward was more than worth it.

As for his plan, it was a simple one. Wait until the player engages some monsters then throw a knife at the satchel causing it to fall. The he would run up to the satchel and pick it up off the ground and run. Easy, or at least in plan it was.

The player was high level from what Johnny could make out. Most monsters didn't last more than a couple of seconds up against the player. He had been following the player for what felt like hours.

It wasn't exactly the easiest thing to camouflage in a white forest. Johnny Black had gotten a whole new set of armor for it. But he could tell that the white he was wearing was a couple shades lighter than the snow on the trees. All he had to do was hope that the player didn't notice him.

He had done the best could so far. Two piles of snow had fallen as well as a broken tree branch. Neither the snow or the branch had made the player look back at him, so consider Johnny lucky.

Just then he saw two jaguars attack the player. Johnny knew this was his chance, so he took out his knife and threw it at the satchel.

In real life Johnny Black was a minimalist. Never striving to be perfect, just getting the bare minimum. But someone like that won't survive in the death game. Johnny knew this, yet habits of his old life still remained.

No matter how far Johnny could run his life would follow. Johnny hated this, he wanted nothing more to never see his former self. That was his reason for getting the nervegear in the first place. Still this shown even in the smallest of ways.

Johnny threw his knife at the satchel, but it missed and hit the ground next to player.

Johnny exhales.

If he would have hit the player he would have gone orange, his first time doing so. And he really didn't want that. Going orange would mean he could get back into to town. He feared losing entry to the town like a teenager feared loss of internet.

He had only so many times before he would been permanently orange and even though he was practically a grade B theif he didn't want to be orange.

Luckily there was a layer of snow between the player and the ground, so his knife hid perfectly in the snow. If his knife would have been found the entire operation would've been for nothing. If their was anything to thank the snow it was now.

But Johnny had no time to stop since the player was already on the move. He would be also, I mean you can't just wait in one area and hope all the monsters come to you. If it was, Johnny would have been at least a couple of levels higher.

Johnny followed the player without even going back to get his knife. He hope that he would remember where it was at. If not someone would get a good present when they found it.

Johnny climbed from tree to tree, across the branches. Good thing that the oak trees on this floor were big enough to climb on. Johnny was having trouble keeping up with the player, but luckily the player was walking not running.

A little bit after their encounter with the last jaguars three more appeared and ran at the player. The player unsheathed their two handed sword and started to attack the oncoming animals.

Taking this opportunity, Johnny took out another knife and before throwing he blew on it as if he was enacting a ritual to make sure his blade hits his intended targets. But this time unlike last time hit it's target.

The satchel fell gracefully on to the snow below. It did not shatter since the satchel could still be fixed. Thankfully this was the case since if it wasn't Johnny was sure the player would have noticed as soon as it shattered.

The player was too occupied by the jaguars to notice that a random knife was thrown into the ground in front of them.

Johnny jumped down to the snow covered ground and grabbed the satchel off the ground but when he did he noticed someone in the distance hiding.

Well the player was hiding but not from him. He continued to look at the player as the player advanced on the other player, the one Johnny had been following. The player was wearing one long white cloak that blended in much better than his to the snow. But this wasn't the characteristic that caught Johnny's eye.

The player did blend in well, at least when their head was up that is. The player had an unrecognizable different pair of eyes. They were glowing and staring straight at him, as if he could see Johnny's soul just by looking.

Johnny was paralyzed in fear as he held the stolen satchel in his hand. Then the other player turn around to see that Johnny had his satchel.

"Hey!" The player yelled in alarment. But this was the only thing he would ever hear the player say. The mysterious red eyed man's estoc cut straight through the player's upper body.

The players yell had awoken Johnny from his paralyzation as he saw the sword go through the player. Immediately Johnny's eyes opened up fully, as if he had only had them half open. He had just witnessed a yellow player kill another player, not something people talk about.

Johnny's hand grasped the satchel tighter as he ran away from the dying. He didn't know where he was going but he knew one thing, any place was better as long as it didn't have a orange player in its midst.

XXXX  
Second Johnny Chapter and still not a killer

Don't worry my intention is to make him a killer but that doesn't just happen overnight

Hope you all have a great day

There is still more chapters to come!

-Kirk


	41. Consort

February 7, 2023

-Coper and Kirito-

"Just imagine, how crappy you would be without all those years of kendo." Coper says as he drives his sword into a jaguar.

"I would suck ass, maybe I would earned a nickname other than beater." Kirito states. "I don't get why I'm still the beater, quite a few people have beaten me." Kirito says as he thinks about how many people have beaten him.

Asuna beat him in their duel, Tito had beat him when he tried to stop him, Zack completely destroyed him, and Zaza nearly knocked him off a tree.

"Has Kibaou seen you get beaten?" Coper asks.

"I'll die before he get's the joy of seeing that one." Kirito chuckles.  
They continue to walk on through the dungeon on floor ten. They had managed to both wake up earlier than Asuna and sneaked out of the Inn.

Floor ten looked absolutely stunning. Floor ten was practically one huge snowy forest. Even if you had grown up around snow the feel of the area was paralleled to anywhere else thus far in the game. It really felt like a white Christmas, only if they had made it to this floor by Christmas, but alas it looks like they would be spending valentine's day in the snow.

Both Coper and Kirito hadn't really grown up in the snowiest places. Over winter it didn't always snow and when it did it wasn't nearly enough to get them out of school. This was Kirito first time experiencing snow of this caliber and he wasn't disappointed. In real life each snowflake was different and Kirito would believe it here too because it was just that stunning.

"Do you ever wonder what you'd be doing if it wasn't for this death game?" Kirito asks Coper.

"I would be probably in my room if I wasn't online, and I would be wondering how the hell did you get me to give up the frame of my nervegear." Coper states.

"Hey it still works." Kirito says humorously.

"That was the one thing we did IRL wasn't it?" Coper asks.

"Yeah it was." Kirito answers him.

"You now what makes me mad, I wasn't even thanked." Coper exclaims.

"You know what, after this is over I'll give you my nervegear." Kirito states.

"What don't to see the thing every time you walk into your room." Coper retorts.

"It's not like you wouldn't take it, you'd probably sell it." Kirito says.

"I wouldn't sell it… not right away at least." Coper states. "I would have to find a way to get into the black market." Coper says. Immediately afterwards both teenagers breakout in laughter.

"I doubt you could ever get around your parents." Kirito states. "They freaked out that I had a pocket knife when I came over to your house." Kirito states after remembering the first time he went over to Coper's house.

"Didn't I tell you to bring it?" Coper asks.

"Seriously." Kirito says realizing why he was told to bring it.

"What?" Coper asks.

"You told me to bring it so you could see your parents wreck me." Kirito says.

"I will neither confirm or deny that fact." Coper states.

"You probably had a knife in your room too." Kirito states.

"That I can confirm." Coper says. In response Kirito raises his left hand as if he was about to punch Coper. "Hey, cursor." Coper says to get Kirito to not hit him.

Reluctantly, Kirito lowers his fist very slowly. "Add that to list off upsides to this game." Kirito says jokingly.

"What, that you can't hurt me." Coper says.

"No, that you still have a perfect nose." Kirito states as he pulls out his sword once again and engages another jaguar.

The monsters on this floor weren't too difficult. They could potentially overwhelm Kirito but that is what he had Coper there for. He was very unlikely to to get overwhelmed with two sets of eyes and two swords.

But that wasn't to say that the animals were easy pickings almost everything in the game could potentially kill you, even a boar it would just take a bit longer than the others. The jaguars of floor ten were easy enough and with enough skill you could easily maneuver around them.

It is not like Kirito was overflowing with skill but he had enough to overcome the simple monsters of floor ten. In fact he had met tons of people who had obviously had more skill then him.

Tsubaki noticed every little detail about everything a also knew the counter measures. Ran was nearly the same way but could copy them. Diavel knew how to standing his ground and Zack was practically flawless when using his spear.

Kazuma was practically flawless in both his spear and shield execution expect when he was dueling his brother. The few times Kirito had seen Tito use his martial arts, he was awestruck.

How was he even the beater? So many other people were stronger than him. Kirito was fine with this as he wasn't that hard core of a player. But he would still help out where he could.

"Kirito." Coper says, bring Kirito out of his thoughts. Coper raises his left hand to call over Kirito.

"What?" Kirito asks once he reaches Coper.

Coper leaned into Kirito and whispered in his ear. "You feel how awkward this is, this is how it feels for me when Asuna does it." Coper whispered in Kirito's ear.

"Seriously!" Kirito exclaims as he pushes Coper away.

"Come on, you two need a room, bad." Coper states. "But seriously." Coper says as he lean back into Kirito. "We're being followed." Coper whispers.

"WHAT, how do you know?" Kirito yells then quiets down.

"We just walked in a circle, there's footprints on the ground." Coper states. "Be prepared for an ambush." Coper whispers.

"Should we-." Kirito starts to ask but Coper cuts him off.

"No, we should be able to get another level." Coper says as he turns around and continues walking. Kirito also starts to walk but on alert. Kirito managed to keep himself calm and looked as though nothing had just conspired.

They walk a couple of meters before Coper stops Kirito and hushes Kirito from saying anything. "Unsheathe your sword." Coper states as he unsheathes his.

"Okay, why?" Kirito asks right after he takes out his one handed long sword.

"They're about to attack us." Coper states.

"How do you know?" Kirito asks.

"They're right in front of us." Coper states.

"I'm that blind, aren't I." Kirito asks rhetorically.

"Definitely." Coper answers curtly.

"Gota work on that then." Kirito says as he got into to his stance with a grin that spread across his face.

XXXX  
Thank you all for reading this chapter

If you have any questions feel free to PM me

Have a great day

Still have more chapters to come

-Kirk


	42. Close

February 7, 2023

-Coper and Kirito-

Two hooded players stood a couple of meters away from Kirito and Coper. Both of the beaters recognized one of them. Prince of Hell was back again. But the other one neither Kirito nor Coper knew of of. Or at least they didn't remember.

The player didn't look much different from PoH, or at least his attire didn't. He was wearing a white coat and white pants to match it. But unlike PoH he was wielding a two handed sword. It had also seemed that PoH had switched out his dagger for a one handed longsword.

"What are you trying to copy me." Kirito said as his stance didn't waver

"A dagger wouldn't be a opportune weapon to kill you with, now would it." PoH said. "Though it does seem that I got the color scheme wrong." He said humorously.

"The white swordsman doesn't have the same ring." Kirito stated. To this PoH chuckled ever so slightly.

"I guess, but didn't come here to go over nicknames." PoH said as his arm extended out farther in front of him with his sword pointing in the direction of Coper. "I'll keep this short, I failed last time and now I'm going to kill you." PoH said as his demeanor changed. He now felt like a businessman and his business was to kill them.

Without a second to spare, PoH swift advanced on Coper and launched a vertical but Kirito stepped in front of it and blocked it with his sword. Not even hesitating for a second PoH puts his hand on his sword and pushed down against Kirito's sword.

In response to this Kirito also put his hand his hand on his sword and pushed against PoH's. "White versus Black." Kirito said to break the tension that was building up.

This made PoH let up and jump back. With a couple of seconds of freedom Kirito looked down at his palm and saw the glowing red that emitted out of his hand. He clenched his fist and looked back up to see PoH a couple of meters away from him.

"Why are doing this?" Kirito shouted at PoH.

"I'm just told how to kill and I kill, I don't need a reason." PoH stated as he pounced at Kirito again.

Kirito jumped a couple of meters back to avoid the horizontal that PoH had just thrown at him. "Is that your reason?" Kirito asked rhetorically.

"What's your reason then?" PoH Asked as he jumped forward and unleashed a vertical at Kirito.

Kirito was taken aback by this question. It had been forever since he had thought about why he was fighting. At first it was just to survive, to not let the game beat him. But now it was more. He had met people old and new, and that changed things. He had never really thought about it since he didn't need to. If he had to tell himself his reason to fight then his reason wouldn't be pure enough.

"Kirito!" Coper yelled as he pushed him away from the oncoming vertical. But instead he was hit by it. Coper felt the oranges player's sword rip through his forearm and come out clean on the other side.

He saw half of his left forearm detached from his body for a couple of seconds before it shatter into a million tiny blue shards. Before he knew what was happening he saw Kirito standing above him deflecting PoH's sword.

"Kirito, stand back this is my fight." Coper said as he got up from the snow covered ground.

"No, I'm fine, you take time to rest." Kirito stated as he blocked a vertical.

"No, this is my battle, I can handle it." Coper said as he put his right hand on Kirito's shoulder.

Kirito could tell that Coper would be able duel the player killer and maybe even win, but he wouldn't take that chance. He didn't want to chance his friends life.

Coper was about to yelled switch but his plans were cut short since he was stabbed in the lower back from behind. The pain that came from the stab in his back was different from his arm. His arms pain was the type that made you scream but get back up and fight even harder.

The pain in his back forever was different. It would cripple you, make you fall to the ground and moan in agony. Would have knocked Coper out if he was in the real world. But he wasn't the real world.

Coper turned around and the knife that was in his back finally fell out out. He saw the other orange player standing a couple of meters away from him. He was unsheathing his two handed sword.

Coper mustered up the strength and asked, "What didn't want to get your blade stained." He said this with a maniacal grin on his face.

Before even allowing Coper time to finish his sentence the player attacked Coper. Coper jumped out the way since he doubt he had the strength left in him to block it successfully. But he still had strength to annoy the player.

"You seriously attacking a cripple." Coper said as he continued to back away from the player.

"A beater like you needs a cripple for this duel to be fair." The orange player said as he gripped his sword even harder and charged up a sword skill.

The orange player's two handed sword grazed what was left of Coper's arm as Coper dodge forwards. He knew that he didn't really have the best of odds against the player since he had lost his left hand and was stabbed in the abdomen.

But if he continued to annoy the player with insults then he would loss the remaining strength that he had left. So with this in mind Coper dodged forward and unleashed a linear right into the orange player chest.

The player shatter into a million of blue shards right in front of Coper's eyes. His sword dropped into a padding of snow on the ground. As the sword touched the snow it hit Coper. He had just killed someone. An act that would be with him for the rest of his life. An act that he couldn't take back. An act that he didn't regret.

Coper turned around to see PoH and Kirito dueling. They both seemed of around the same skill level. PoH had at least a half a meter on him but was less skilled with his sword. They had a rhythm going and both of them never seemed to lose much ground if any at all. But that was about to change since it was about to be two on one.

PoH unleashed and horizontal then immediately jumped back to put some room in between him and the two beaters.

"Well that a shame, he really did hate beaters." PoH said with a little bit of sarcasm in his voice. "Now it's been fun playing but I really don't have the time any more." PoH said as he turned around and ran away.

Kirito started to run but he stopped once Coper yelled at him. Kirito walked back to Coper and asked if he was okay

"Yeah I'm fine, I'm just glad you're okay too." Coper stated as he navigated his menu.

"Why?" Kirito asked as he sheathed his sword.

"Because Asuna would have killed me if you had died." Coper stated as he drink his health potion.

XXXX  
The answer to life the universe and everything

Since my tense in the past was bad it is in past tense

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	43. Chain

February 13, 2023

-Lizbeth and Asuna-

"Hey Asuna." Lizbeth said once she Asuna walk into her new shop. "I'm glad you could make it." Lizbeth said she put down her hammer.

"What did you need me for?" Asuna asked as she examined the room. The room was a little bigger than her bedroom in the real world. Her bedroom in the real world was about 4.5 meters by 5 meters, which of course she knew by memory. But the room was stark naked except for a heap of randomness in the middle.

"I would like you to help me setup my shop." Lizbeth said as she picked up her hammer once again.

"Why didn't tell me that in your message?" Asuna asked.

"You wouldn't have came if I did, right." Liz stated while looking at Asuna.

"Why do you know me so well, we've only been friends for three months!" Asuna exclaimed.

"Come over here, I have an anvil for you to move." Liz stated she latched the hammer she had been holding to belt.

"WHAT, why don't you do it?" Asuna asked as she started lean against a wall.

"Some friend you are." Lizbeth said as rolled her eyes and she started to push on of her glass showcases across the wood flooring.

"It's not your a great friend yourself, what have you done to help me?" Asuna asked.

"I have allowed you to talk about that boy with no questions asked." Lizbeth stated.

Asuna was taken aback by this. Liz was right, Asuna wouldn't know what to do without Lizbeth. "Where's the anvil?" Asuna asked after she pushed herself off the wall.

"Could you help me push this actually?" An out of breath Liz asked. Asuna looked over to see that Liz was obviously have trouble with her meter long showcase. Liz pushed it half of the way to where she wanted to but she had used most of her energy. Or was acting. Either way Asuna was going to help.

"Where does it need to go?" Asuna asked as she got ready to push it by herself.

"About a meter from both of those walls." Liz stated as point at the two farthest walls from the entrance. The entrance was in the left corner but there was also another door in the middle of the far wall.

"What's that to?" Asuna asked once her eyes wandered to the door.

"It's my bedroom slash crafting area." Liz answered. "I could show it to you after you're done with that showcase." Lizbeth stated she started to push the anvil towards the back door.

"Awesome, is this good?" Asuna asked a she straightened her posture.

"Yeah, now just push it a meter towards the front and make it parallel to these walls." Liz stated.

"Why did you tell me that in the first place?" Asuna asked as she started to push the showcase again.

"Because it's fun to watch you waste energy." Liz teases.

Asuna finished pushing the showcase then walked into the back room. The was at least half the size of the room up front, but this room wasn't stark naked.

The room had one giant window in the back which was the main light source since she hadn't turned on the light. The room was small to her but it was also cozy. But before Asuna had time to examine the room more Liz cut her short.

"Do you like it?" Lizbeth asked as the anvil that she was carrying slammed on to the ground.

"It's nice." Asuna said as she bent down to pick up the anvil. "Where does this need to go?" She asked once she had a firm grasp on the anvil.

"Over there by the fireplace." Liz answered.

"What, there's a fireplace!" Asuna exclaimed.

"That's what I said, they manage to fit a fireplace in this small, I was thinking that I would have to set up a temporary one." Lizbeth said.

"That's nice." Asuna said as she placed the anvil next to fireplace. The fireplace wasn't much of anything special, it ran up halfway up the wall and was made of stone.

Asuna turned around to fully see the room. There was a small twin size bed in the corner with a night stand and that was it for the bedroom part of the room. The flooring was tatami which Asuna had only seen one Inn that had that so far in Aincrad. As for the blacksmithing part, there was basically everything a Liz could need in there.

There was all of her tool lying neatly on the table. A bunch of blacksmithing stuff, most of which shouldn't name if her life depended on it.

"Believe it or not but this room is bigger than the one I lived in IRL." Lizbeth stated.

"Really, mine was at least the size of your front room!" Asuna exclaimed.

"Lucky, when we get out you are going to take me out to eat and I'm going to get the most expensive steak I can find." Liz said.

"Call it a girls night out then." Asuna said after giggling a bit. "Did you buy this place?" Asuna asked as she knelt down to feel the floor.

"Yeah, I was thinking of staying here till you guys got to floor 30 since this place is right in the center of the market." Lizbeth stated.

"You bought a place before me." Asuna stated.

"You should get a place with him, if anything can keep him with you a financial investment will." Liz stated humorously.

"Thank for that Liz." Asuna said.

"No problem, do you need your sword sharpened?" Liz asked.

"Sure." Asuna said as she unsheathed her sword and handed it to Liz.

Liz walked over to her grinding wheel before she started the conversation back up. "So what are you doing for tomorrow?" Liz asked.

"Do you seriously have to poke around in other people's business." Asuna asked rhetorically.

In response to this, Liz started to push harder down on Asuna's sword and said, "Where do you think I get my gossip from?"

"Okay, You're a great blackmailer." Asuna stated.

"Thank you, I take pride in it." Liz stated as she temporarily put her hands on her hips.

"Well, he hasn't said anything to me about tomorrow!" Asuna exclaims.

"Oh no, you have to take initiative then." Liz stated as she continued to sharpen the rapier.

"The last time I did that he kind of turned me down." Asuna said as she wiped her eyes.

"Be less blunt about-." Liz started speak was cut short by a flying blade. She had just broken Asuna's rapier. Both of the parts shattered, the handle and the blade.

"LIZ!" Asuna screamed.

"No, this is good." Lizbeth stated.

"What so you can get more money!" Asuna exclaimed.

"You have a back up rapier, right?" Liz asked.

"What does that have to do with anything?" Asuna asked.

"Well you could go on quest to get a new rapier tomorrow with him." Liz said her idea.

"You still owe me a rapier." Asuna stated.

"But hey it's still a good idea." Liz stated.

"You're insufferable." Asuna said as she started to walk toward the door.

"Wait, where are you going?" Liz asked.

"To go set up that date." Asuna answered as she walked through the door.

XXXX  
Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

If you have any questions feel free to ask

This is the last chapter for a while

Have a great day

-Kirk


	44. Case

February 14, 2023

-Asuna and Kirito-

"Hey Kirito." Asuna said while she was running up to him. Once she reached him she Asked a question, "Can you come with me today?"

"Where?" Kirito asked.

"Floor ten, there is a quest for a rapier there." Asuna answered.

"Why do you need a new one." Kirito asked another question.

"Oh I broke mine yesterday." Asuna said nonchalantly.

"Well I guess I am free today, Coper just went to get his weapon enhanced." Kirito stated.

"Oh, who did he go to?" Asuna asked.

"Nezha, so what does this quest have us do?" Kirito asked.

"It has us killing a ton of volffs." Asuna said as she started to walk in the direction of the snow plains.

Kirito once Kirito reaches her he asked, "So what exactly is a Vollf?"

"Haven't you spent a ton of time on this floor?" Asuna asked instead of answering Kirito's question.

"I spend most of my time in the forest, not the plains." Kirito stated.

"Hang out with me more often then, I spend most of my time there." Asuna said as she turned to face Kirito.

"Let's go get you that sword." Kirito said as he started to walk again.

XXXX

"These things are huge, why are these things the size of a great dane?" Kirito asked as he dodged one of the volff's attacks. "Why do you spend your time here?" Kirito asked.

"For one thing I can't be snuck up by player killers here." Asuna stated.

"Coper told you?" Kirito asked but he already knew the answer.

"Next time bring me with you okay?" Asuna said.

"I will." Kirito said.

"Promise?" Asuna asked to confirm again.

"Promise." Kirito stated.

"If you break, I get your sword." Asuna said.

"Like you could even use it." Kirito stated.

"I could to!" Asuna said as if it were a challenge.

Kirito spun his sword so the blade would be facing the ground then he offered Asuna to hold it. Asuna grabbed it and was confident until Kirito let go. As soon as Kirito let go the sword fell into the snow.

Kirito bent down and picked his sword off the snow patted ground and said, "Do you want to try again?"

"I didn't know it would be that heavy!" Asuna exclaimed.

"Were you expecting a feather." Kirito said.

"More or less." Asuna giggled as she took out her rapier. "I'll just stick with mine." She stated.

"You should raise that strength stat then." Kirito suggested.

"I should." Asuna said as she jabbed her sword into one of the volffs.

Kirito chuckled. It reminded him of the first day of the death game. Before they actually knew that they couldn't log out of the game. They were all messing around and Kirito dropped his sword. Sinon went over and tried to pick it up but couldn't.

It also reminded Kirito that before that month would be over, Sinon could not only lift his sword, but she could throw it and hit her target. If Kirito were to guess Sinon would have a higher strength stat then Asuna but not for long since Asuna would probably invest in it shortly.

Kirito was brought back into the world of the living once he saw that a volff was running straight at him. He easily sidestepped it then brought his sword into it's head causing it to burst into blue shards while also bringing up a menu.

There was nothing important, like usual. The pop up was more of a nuisance than a help. I guess it would help if you got the one in a ten thousand chance of actually getting something useful besides col. Another pop up appeared but he just exited it before even looking at the contents.

"At least I can beat you in a duel." Asuna stated.

"Beginners luck." Kirito said as he swung his sword into another volff.

"Really, I challenge you to another duel, right here, right now." Asuna said offended as she pulled up her menu and sent Kirito a duel request.

"Get ready for defeat then." Kirito said as he accepted the request. They both backed away till they had a distance of ten meters between them then they both got into their stances.

Kirito raised his sword so that the sword would be parallel to the snow covered ground. His right arm his bent to be just above a ninety degree angle and the sword would be about a fourth of a meter away from his body. He extend his left hand out in front of him as if to make up for the open spots in his formation.

Asuna raised her sword so that it parallel with the ground but points directly at Kirito's face. Her right arm his completely outstretched and her left arm laid lazily by her side. They both wore expressions that weren't friendly, as if they were preparing for the duel of their lives.

As soon as the countdown timer hit zero Asuna ran at Kirito. She unleashed a linear at up but he easily deflected it after stepping to the right. Kirito unleashed a horizontal.

Asuna jumped back to dodge but she wasn't fast enough and the beater's blade grazed across her stomach.

"You wouldn't hit a woman." Asuna said as she jumped yet another space away from Kirito.

"Oh I'm sorry princess, where would you like me to hit you then?" Kirito said mockingly.

"Right here." Asuna said as she pointed at he left foot.

"I'll take your request under consideration." Kirito said as he readied himself once more.

Asuna used her speed to her advantage as she ran at Kirito once again. She caught Kirito by surprise and hit him with a linear in his right shoulder. Kirito stepped out of the way of the rest of the sword skill as Asuna ran past him.

Kirito realized that Asuna was going to run past him so he outstretched his leg so Asuna would trip over it. As intended Asuna tripped over his leg and face planted directly into the snow.

"No cool!" Asuna exclaimed through the snow. Kirito ignored this and drove his sword into Asuna's left foot.

"It was this foot right?" Kirito asked mockingly.

"Yes." Asuna said once she reluctantly got up.

"Here you go." Kirito said as he opened his menu and sent a trade to Asuna. It was the rapier that Argo said she would get from this quest. "I could have gave it to you before the duel, but I was getting annoyed with the pop ups." Kirito stated. The swords name was Malignant Crusader

"Thank you!" Asuna exclaimed as she ran over to Kirito and gave him a hung before even accepting the pushed Kirito back a step but Asuna didn't let go.

She didn't want to. She could live that moment over and over again. It wouldn't be something she would see as her life flashed before her eyes. And that was before Kirito hugged her back.

Now that he did that she felt as though time had stopped. Nothing else in the world mattered anymore. It made all of the suitors she sat through worth it. She had finally gotten something from him and now that she did she didn't want to let go.

"Um Asuna." Kirito said.

"Yeah." Asuna answered.

"I only have a finite amount of HP and well you're depleting it." Kirito stated.

"Oh sorry." Asuna said as she broke the hug. She didn't realize that she was squeezing him that hard.

"It's fine, we can leave this cold now." Kirito said.

"Do you want to come back to the town, I have an Inn room." Asuna offered.

"I have to go help Coper with something, it turns out that the blacksmith wasn't everything that he bargain for." Kirito stated.

"Okay." Asuna said. She would have normally been disappointed but valentine's day had proven to do her well.

XXXX  
Hey Everyone, I'm back, sorry for my absence

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

There's going to be a couple of chapters today!

Have a great day

-Kirk


	45. Clarify

February 15, 2023

-Kirito and Coper-

"I haven't missed a single one!" Kirito stated.

"Yeah you did, only two people went to take floor three's." Coper stated.

"Oh yeah." Kirito said after realized that he was wrong.

"So are you up for it, if not I won't be able to go anyways." Coper stated as he navigated through his menus.

"Sure, do you know a blacksmith?" Kirito asked.

"Yes, but you know how that one went." Coper stated.

"So not only do you want to skip a boss raid but you don't know where we're even going." Kirito stated. "You're the best." Kirito said.

"Well I was expecting between you add Argo we would be able to come up with something." Coper stated.

"I'm going to go then, Asuna would kill me if she had go alone." Kirito stated as he started to walk away from Coper.

"She would kill you for being late." Coper said.

"True." Kirito stated. Kirito stopped walking and pondered for awhile. "I'll delay the inevitable." Kirito stated as he walked back to Coper.

"Do you know any blacksmiths?" Coper asked once Kirito was standing next to him.

"Yeah, one, she made this sword." Kirito said as he gestured to the sword on his back.

" _She_ , have you been cheating on Asuna?" Coper teased.

"Shut up." Kirito answered curtly.

"I'll take that as a yes." Coper smirked. "So where is she then." He asked.

"She has a new shop on floor ten I think, hold on Klein gave me the info." Kirito said as he pulled up his menu and started to sift through it.

"Did Klein hit on her?" Coper asked.

"Probably, I wasn't there for it unfortunately." Kirito chuckled. "It is this way." Kirito stated as he started to walk towards the center of the town that they were in.

The market on floor ten was one of the largest they have unlocked in the first ten floors of Aincrad, the next largest being the floor one market in the main town. But there was one simple fact that made this one better.

Floor one was full of level one people and subsequently the NPC's sold low level equipment. Usually nobody buys from NPCs but at the beginning of a game there aren't many player shops open so players will buy from them.

With that and the combined facts that no one wants to deal with the army, makes the market of floor ten better. But who can argue with the market of floor ten, after all newer is always better.

They reached Lizbeth's shop with much difficulty. The market had a fairly easy layout to it.

"Is this it?" Coper asked.

"I don't know, I haven't been to her new shop yet." Kirito stated as he walked up to the building. He looked up to see Lizbeth's shop sign and said, "I hope so." With that said Kirito opened up the door to the blacksmith's shop and walked in.

"Liz." Kirito said as the wind chimes went off. Kirito looked around the room. It was definitely different from the other shop she had. This one was more spacious than the last even though it probably had more things in it.

This one had four showcases instead of two but she had barely filled the two in her old shop. Her new shop wasn't different in that regard as she hadn't put anything in her new ones. She had shelves on the furthest wall that housed probably her newest items.

"Just a second!" Liz yelled from the back room.

"This a lot better than the last place." Coper stated. "The last place was in the ghettos." Coper said as he looked around the shop.

"So what, you live there anyways." Kirito said.

"Not anymore." Coper said as looked into one of the showcases.

Kirito and Coper continued to bicker for a few seconds until Liz came into the room.

"Finally repaying that sword I see." Liz said as she closed her door.

"Klein's guild came in didn't they, I thought that would be enough." Kirito stated.

"For a top of the line sword, you've got to be joking." Liz giggled as she walked towards the beaters. "Who's this?" Liz asked.

"Coper Liz, Liz Coper." Kirito introduced them to each other.

"I'm pretty sure I learned her name from the sign, Kirito." Coper said.

"Formalities Coper, sheesh." Kirito said as he unsheathed his sword. "Could you sharpen this?" Kirito asked as he hand over his sword.

"Yeah, I'll take this to the back, give me a couple of minutes." Liz said as she took ahold of Kirito's sword and walked into the back room.

Once the door the back room was fully closed Coper began to speak. "She's cute." he stated as he turned his body towards Kirito.

"AHH, look who has a crush." Kirito said mockingly.

"Shut up." Coper said annoyed as he turned his attention back over to the items in the showcase.

"Just returning the favor." Kirito said as he too bent down and looked into the showcase.

"It's your fault for not making it official." Coper said.

"I don't know if I can handle it." Kirito said as he stood up.

"Handle what?" Coper asked as he too stood up from looking into the showcase.

"A relationship, I mean I am still a socially awkward fourteen year old." Kirito stated.

"You talked to Shino just fine." Coper stated.

"Until the point where she got mad at me and never talked to me again, thanks for that by the way." Kirito said.

"That was all your fault." Coper said as he leaned over the showcase. They both stood there in silence for about a minute until Liz walked back into the room.

"Here you go, that will be three thousand col." Liz stated.

"What, I don't get it for free." Kirito said jokingly as he pulled up his menu and pulled out the col and handed it over to Liz.

"So what are you here for then?" Liz asked as she turned her attention from Kirito to Coper.

"I need a sword, same as his." Coper stated as he nodded his head in Kirito's direction.

"Kirito." Liz said as she motioned for Kirito to give her his sword once again. He obliges and once Lizbeth gets a hold of the sword Lizbeth analyzes it. "You're in luck, I have some materials in the back, come with me." Liz said as she closed the analysis pop up and handed Kirito's sword back to him.

"Why?" Coper asked even though he didn't mind following her.

"I craft better when I'm not alone, Kirito you can come too." Liz answered as she opened up her door and entered the back room with Coper and Kirito following not long after.

The beaters enter the back room to see that it is cluttered. Lizbeth's tools were everywhere. On top of anvils, in front of the fireplace, laying on the ground, and to top it all off her blanket wasn't even on the bed.

"Sorry for the clutter, but it's not like your rooms were any better." Liz stated as she walked drawer and started to pulled it open.

"Mine wasn't cluttered." Coper said as if he was trying to defend himself.

"Yes it was." Kirito said.

"It wasn't bad though." Coper said while he was trying to act cool.  
"I had to push open your door." Kirito stated without even a second of silence.

"You didn't come over to my house." Coper lied as he stared at Kirito as if to tell him to stop talking.

"I went over to your house twice." Kirito chuckled. He was having fun teasing Coper. It was nice to have the tides turned.

"It wasn't cluttered." Coper repeated while he stared a Kirito harder.

"The only part that wasn't cluttered was your bed, which didn't even house a blanket." Kirito teased, he was having way too much fun flustering Coper.

"Hot!" Liz yelped as she took the heated metal out of the fireplace.

"What!" Both of the beaters said in unison. Neither of them were paying attention to Liz.

"Your sword is just about done." Liz said as she put the metal onto her table. She picked up her hammer from the ground and started to shape the blade.

"Did you hear any of that?" Coper asked.

"Quiet, she's concentrating." Kirito said curtly. This stopped Coper in his tracks.

Liz stopped hitting the metal and it took form. It didn't look at all like Kirito's but Coper was sure it was of satisfactory quality. The blade itself was simple apart from the guard. The pommel was a simple metal ball while the blade was thicker closer to the hilt and the farther it extend away from it the thinner it got, it was like most swords.

But the hilt wasn't as simple. It extended three times almost back to back on the blade before it got to the handle. Each one was bigger than the last while each on also curved up and came to a fine point. The points could serve as its own weapon if it wanted to.

"Wow!" Liz screamed.

"What!" Both Kirito and Coper scream in unison once more.

"It's a named weapon, Remorse, Slayer of Lost Comrades." Liz stated in amazement. "That's a first." Liz said. "Here you go." Liz said as she handed her masterpiece over to Coper.

"Beat that Kirito, my sword a has a name." Coper said proudly.

"I could still beat you in battle, bye Liz." Kirito said as he left the shop.

XXXX

Hey everyone, second chapter today, if you didn't read the last one go and read more of my horrible fan-fiction!

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

If you have any questions, feel free to ask

Have a wonderful day!

-Kirk


	46. Certainly

February 15, 2023

-Tsubaki-

Tsubaki exhaled. They finally had a new floor. She was glad at this fact since well she hated floor ten. Sure it was stunning at first but after spending a week on the floor the cold just wasn't fun anymore.

She just wasn't used to the cold and she didn't like the cold one bit. It may have been worth it to see the snow fall but it didn't. It was a winter floor but the snow was just there, it didn't fall from the sky.

Truth be told Tsubaki never saw snowfall or snow well at least until floor tne that is. And well after spending a week it she could see how some people could hate the snow. She didn't hate the snow just the cold.

In the real world she had never really experienced sub zero temperatures or rather the lowest she temperature she remember was ten degrees celsius. That was her definition of a perfect temperature.

Just cold enough to justify a jacket but not cold enough to justify not wearing shorts. She could have lived in that weather. But the cold for her was just terrible. Alas she was finally of that cold floor to experience one that, well wasn't warm. She did in fact buy new armor to keep herself warm.

Though it may have been the cheapest armor around. She as much fashion as a male 5th grader and that was when she just happened to do something right. Having to change into a different outfit was very fun of Tsubaki unlike most girls among her age.

She knew the reason of why they did but she just didn't care enough. She wasn't going to see how she looked so why did it matter. But didn't mean she couldn't be proud of what she picked out.

Tsubaki was still wearing her 'winter outfit' becuase floor eleven was exactly one of the warmer floors. Her outfit consisted of a long white coat and blue boats. The boats were a thousand col less than the white ones. Underneath she was wearing black pants and a button up black shirt. All of the articles of clothing she bought were the cheapest she could find on floor nine.

She gasped as she walked out of the first town on floor eleven. The town that she was in was nothing special when she was in it but she saw where it was it would be a sight to behold. It was on a mountain.

Surrounding it was other mountains after of course the dip in altitude from mountain to mountain. Floor eleven was one big mountain range.

Sword Art Online had presented a lot of first for Tsubaki. First sight of snow, first sub zero temperature, and now first mountain range. For being a death game, it gave Tsubaki more than the real world ever could.

She looked down to see how far down it would be before monsters started to spawn. As she looked down Tsubaki came to one conclusion. Either she had a fear of heights or the anxiety is really getting to her. With that in mind she head back into the town.

She was about to add another first to her list of firsts. It's not exactly something that she would do in the real world, then yet again would she have a sword in the real world? Her father would yell at her for doing it also but yet again yolo right? She could die any day and well it's not like she would ever have a chance to do what she was about in the real world.

Tsubaki went to the nearest store and bought the cheapest shield she could find. The blue shield was circular with a gold trim. But none of that matter since the shield would probably never be used for it's intended purpose.

She never went sledding in the real world so this was her substitute in the virtual. Using a shield as he sledd as she road down the first mountain she had seen in her life. Tsubaki would have gotten an actually sledd but as far as she knew the only sledd in Aincrad came at Christmas so a shield would do.

Tsubaki ran through the town as fast as she could, she couldn't wait to go on her first sledding adventure, if you could call it that.

Once Tsubaki got to the point of which where the ground was enough level or the lack of, she drop the shield on the ground and sat down on top of it and put her hand on a nearby rock and propelled herself off of it.

The experiences of riding down a mountain on a shield though it was very unsafe, it was something she could live over, and over, and over again. Once she got to the bottom there was nothing she wanted to do besides ride down the mountain again. But then she looked back up the mountain.

"That's going to take forever." Tsubaki stated out loud to herself. The town was so far up that she could block it from her sight with just the palm of her hand. And Tsubaki has small hands. With this in mind she grabbed her shield and latched it to her arm before starting the trek back up.

Once she was about halfway up she saw a Samurai. One that she knew in fact. She really didn't want company much less his company. But it seems as though she couldn't get away from the Red Samurai.

"Oi, Tsubaki." Klein called out as he picked the pace.

"Hi Klein." Tsubaki said exhaustedly. Maybe if she acted tired he would go away.

"I've been looking for you!" Klein said once he got near her.

"Well that's a first." Tsubaki thought. Another thing to add to her list. "Why would you be trying to find me." Tsubaki said trying to sound as stern as possible.

"Well you're the only female person that didn't say no." Klein stated as he scratched his head.

"I thought ignoring you for a month was enough of a message, but if you want be told out loud by all means tell me." Tsubaki stated as she continued to walk up the mountain.

"What makes you not want to be with me?" Klein asked after ignoring Tsubaki's last statement.

"Well firstly, we have a ten year difference and I'm pretty sure in the real world it would be illegal." Tsubaki said.

"But we're not in the real world." Klein stated as he started to follow Tsubaki up the mountain.

Tsubaki grinned at Klein's comment. "Well if you're that desperate, what age did you think I was?" Tsubaki asked.

"Sixteen." Klein answered.

"If that's the cause then in two years I'll give you a chance." Tsubaki said. In two years she probably wouldn't be in the game anymore, in two years she probably wouldn't know Klein, in two years she go back to hating the world.

"Yes." Klein exclaimed out of excitement.

"Now, stop following me." Tsubaki said as she started to turn her walk into a run.

XXXX  
Hope you all enjoyed this chapter, if didn't read the last one pleased do!

If you have any questions, please ask them!

There will be one more chapter today after this one.

Hope you all have a great day!

-Kirk


	47. Charity

February 19, 2023

-Diavel, Lind, Sinon, Kirito, Asuna, Coper, Klein, Ran, Saffi, Tsubaki, Kazuma-

"Okay I have one thing to say, let's bet this boss!" Diavel shouted over all over the whispers through the players in front of him. Diavel was standing at the entrance to the eleventh boss room. The doors were still closed and there was at least 50 players in front of him if not more.

Shouts of yeah and let's do this could be heard from almost every player in front of Diavel. This made Diavel proud. He was able to rally players like no else had done. Tons of players looked to him as a beacon of hope and he wasn't about to disappoint.

All the players walked into the boss room as the bossed spawn. The boss room was significantly different from the other boss rooms. It was circular and had torches hung on the wall for light but the floor is what was different.

The floor, if you could even call it that was just mud. The mud was so liquid that their feet would slide right in. If they moved faster enough the mud wouldn't be able to get farther than a couple of decimeters.

But the floor made complete sense when they saw the boss. The boss was at least the size of a small apartment building, just rounder. It was a mud golem to be frank. You could clear see both it's arms and it's head but it's legs were nowhere to be seen. Most players just assumed that the legs were underneath the mud in the floor.

Marang's Mud Golem was the golem's name. It was connected to the floor so unlike the last golem they faced it couldn't be knocked over. This made it incredibly slow so it didn't move around a lot. The entirety of the golem was malleable, it could turn it's hands into weapons, it could move it's face to any part of its body, it had no reason to move.

But every player that was entering the room already knew this, the scouting mission the day earlier was a complete success unlike main before.

"You ready?" Kirito whispered into Asuna's ear.

"Always." Asuna said Kirito as she readied her sword. Kirito turned around and grinned at Coper. Coper grinned back and nodded. Though it may be a death game it was also a video game and they were about to have fun.

All of the DPS players charged at the boss with sword skills prepared. Asuna was first to unleash her attack the boss even though the mud was so bad it was like running through sand. Her four thrusts hit before she ran back and behind the shield users. She had the aggro and would rather have not gotten hit.

The golem punched the shield user in front of her. Though the golem's fist may be made of mud it was strangely solid. That was Diavel's first impression anyways. The fist may have hit the shield user hard but the shield user didn't concede a centimeter.

"Thanks." Asuna said to the shield user as she looked up. The shield user was a tall old man with silver hair.

"Your welcome." He said without lossing a lick of concentration.

Asuna looked around to see that most of the players had back off of the boss. All but one in fact and she knew the one.

It seemed as though Coper was having a fun time strafing the boss, though that wasn't protocol.

"Coper, fall back!" Asuna yelled her command to Coper. She could see how Coper and Kirito became friends. Besides both being 14 year old male gamers, Coper was stupid but in a way that made him enjoyable to be around. She could see how Kirito forgave him so easily.

Speaking of Kirito, Asuna started to look around to find him. She finally found him after surveying most of the boss room she found him on his knees with one hand one the ground. He was next to Sinon and Saffi, normal she would have been jealous but this time she was just glad he was okay.

With that simple run the boss had already lost about half of its first health bar. A tenth of the way there in one go, it seemed like this golem didn't have as much defense as the last one. But it's attacks were far superior.

The Mud Golem started to shapeshift its hands and forearms. The Golem's hands and forearms became blades. One for each arm, the blades were each as long as a semi-truck. The blades started to harden and the less experienced players started to second guess themselves.

"Come on everyone, it doesn't matter how strong the boss, it matters that we a strong enough to take it down!" Diavel shouted as he raised his sword to this boss. This was able to rally the players at the moment.

"Spread out, it is going to stab not slash." Tsubaki stated over everyone. Tsubaki looked to Ran to verify that she had said everything correctly. Ran nodded as she readied her sword.

"Attack now everyone!" Ran yelled as she started to run at the boss. All of the DPS player oblique, some with a little hesitation but all of them ran at the boss.

They rinsed and repeated this tactic with much success. Though the bosses hands or blades changed from axes to shields and to hammers the attacks still worked. Thankfully do one had really gotten to hurt yet.

One shield user had taken the brunt of quite a few attacks and was blown back. But he only lost about a third of his HP. But this was about to change as the boss was entering its last health bar.

The Mud Golem sank into the mud floor.

"Where did it go?" One of the knights shouted. After seeing the golem disappear DIavel ran over to Tsubaki.

"What should we do?" He asked the female player.

Tsubaki scratched her head. They hadn't gotten this far in the scouting mission. She would have to improvise. What she would decide would affect everyone and if she made a wrong choice a player may die.

"Spread apart!" Tsubaki yelled. In any of it's 'forms' it attacks only hit one player at a time. She hoped that the golem didn't get smart but if she had anything to go off of it was the patterns in the last forms.

Everyone diverged away from each other and waited for what would come next. But then something happened that no player expected. A huge mud snake appeared out of the ground and started to attack one of the dragon members next to it.

The player went down extremely fast, only able to get a couple of attacks in and everyone was struck with fear. But the snake didn't go back it to the floor, it simply attack the nearest player. Though this player did fight back the player was easily taken down.

"No." Asuna muttered to herself. Kirito was right, she couldn't just stand around and watch people die. Without even readying her sword, Asuna ran at the snake and unleashed five linears which all hit before the snake turned to her.

The snake's next attack was too faster for Asuna to react but it wasn't to fast for Kirito. The snake jumped at Asuna with it's mouth outstretched to it's limit. To stop it from devouring Asuna, Kirito jumped in front of her and held his sword horizontally for the snake to bite instead of biting him.

As planned the snake Kirito's sword but instead of letting Kirito push his sword through its mouth, the snake used all of its strength to bite down on Kirito's sword and pulled it out of his hands.

The snake looked down at the disarmed Kirito as it stretched its mouth open and prepared a strike on Kirito. But there was ton of players that didn't want that to happen.

SInon pulled her Shadow Strike out of her inventory and threw it at that boss while hoping that her aim was true. To her luck it was and her blade landed in the snake's eye which stunned it temporarily.

"Please don't be reckless." Sinon thought as she pulled out another dagger.

But a couple of seconds wasn't enough time for Kirito to retrieve his sword. Coper recognized this and and well he didn't want the beater stereotype to go extinct.

Coper stepped in front of Kirito then jumped up and kick them boss in the jaw. Once Coper landed back on the ground he charged up a sword skill. It was his best sword skill, a thirteen hit combo.

Coper jumped back up and unleashed his devastating sword skill. Each slash hit a different place on the snake's head but the snake finally exploded after the twelfth hit. Coper finished his sword skill before the last attack bonus menu appeared before him.

"What did you get?" Kirito asked Coper before he even had a chance to open it. Coper took a second to look at before he hand it to Kirito.

"Now you have a named sword to." Coper stated as he gave the sword to Kirito. Kirito looked at his new sword, Sun Striker, the Sun's last gift. "Now don't say I never gave anything to you." Coper stated.

The sword was white and gets very gradually thinner as it gets farther away from the guard. Near the end it extends out but then thins faster than before. It's guard wasn't too unusual it was quite frankly the opposite.

The guard was made up of two sharp blades. It looked as though it had two leaf daggers attached on both sides except they were straight not curved.

"Thanks." Kirito said as he replace the sword in his hand with his new one.

XXXX

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Make sure to read the last couple of chapters if you haven't

If you have any questions, PM me!

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	48. Contrary

February 23, 2023

-Coper and Kirito-

"She is going to kill you for this." Coper chuckled.

"I spent like the whole entire week with her besides we know this forest inside and out." Kirito stated.

"Hey it's your life you're playing with." Coper said as he walked into the snowy forest.

"Besides she said she had something to do today." Kirito said as he caught up to Coper.

Kirito looked around the forest. Both of the beaters seem to come back there an ungodly amount of times, and Kirito thinks he figured out why. From the standpoint of a gamer who never went outside, walking through a snowy forest was uncanny.

I the real world he would be sitting a desk in school learning about trig or something. But in the virtual he was walking around in a snowy forest with a sword in hand. Though the game had aspects to make it seem as though it was real life, it was undeniable that the game was something different.

Kirito could achieve things that he would have never achieved in the real world. I mean he's fought a dragon, jumped at least 10 meters into the air if not more, and dueled many players. Sure he could have done that in the real world, but kendo didn't have the same feel.

Though he quit kendo a while back, Kirito still remember what it felt. There was nothing like whacking the side of his sister's head with bamboo. But in kendo you had all these protective rules and gear.

Even though he was in the virtual world the feeling of his sword cutting through the one and zeros of a monster. It was exhilarating, just a sword and against the world. You could do anything you put your mind to.

Perhaps that was the reason why Kirito entered this world. Perhaps that was why he signed up for the beta.

"How did you get into the beta?" Kirito asked Coper.

"So I get to brag, I was a pro, Kayaba asked me personally to be in the beta." Coper stated in response to Kirito's question.

"League of legends.' Coper said proudly.

"Really, what champion?" Kirito asked as he stabbed a nearby wolf until it exploded.

"Fiora, I am a master duelist." Coper said with a slight chuckle.

"How the hell did you use Fiora?" Kirito asked astounded.

"I got really good with W and it takes pro's a bit to remember how to fight her, they don't ever see Fiora, I get a kick out of seeing their reactions every time." Coper stated. "How did you get in?" Coper asked.

"WOW." Kirito said as he scratched his head.

"Really wouldn't have pegged you for that." Coper said dumbfounded

"I mean Sword Art Online is a massively multiplayer online role playing game like WOW." Kirito stated.

"You have a point, come on this way, there is a unique monster over there, let's see if RNG is on our side." Coper said as he ran over to a wolf that was about double the size of any wolf Kirito had ever seen, virtual or not.

Both beaters went over to the unique monster and took it out fairly easy, after all they had faced multiple bosses and unique monsters posed no threat.

Like floor bosses and field bosses, unique monsters actually had a higher chance than regular mobs of actually dropping good loot. But unlike bosses the difference wasn't much and was really negligible in the long run.

"How's the sword fairing." Coper asked as he closed the loot drop menu.

"I don't know, I think it's about break." Kirito said jokingly.

"I can break it if you want." Coper said rhetorically.

"Beat me and then you can." Kirito challenged Coper as he sent a duel request to Coper.

"Challenge accepted." Coper said as he accepted a duel until half health.

They spaced out until they had about ten meters between them and the beaters readied their named swords. Once the timer hit zero neither of the beaters took a second to prepare, they both rushed each other.

Their swords met at the halfway point, both Kirito and Coper had relatively the same speed as each other. Their swords hit perpendicular to the others, with Kirito's on the bottom. Kirito instead of pushing up against Coper's blade he seamlessly transferred his blade his left hand.

Kirito sidestepped to the right then used all of the strength in his left arm to push away Coper's sword away from his. Then without even pulling back for power penetration power, he lunges forward and his sword intercepts with Coper in his left chest.

"Your blade, it did not cut deep enough." Coper grinned as he charged up a sword skill and let it go into Kirito's side. This brought Kirito down to just under half, winning him the battle.

"Nice job." Kirito said as he took Coper's blade out of his side.

"You've been trying that out?' Coper asked as he pointed to Kirito's left hand.

"Yeah, but it just doesn't have the same feel as my right." Kirito stated as he transferred his sword over to his right hand.

"You need more practice with it." Coper said.

"It took you by surprise though?" Kirito said.

Coper chuckled. "I wouldn't be a front liner if that little trick would have lost me the battle." Coper said.

"I guess that's true, you think it would get Asuna?" Kirito asked.

"I don't know, but you don't really need, just don't let her grab your blade." Coper stated as he started to walk off.

"Wait she told you about that." Kirito said realizing that Asuna told.

To this Coper chuckles and said, "I thought you were better than that."

They continue their walk in the forest before Kirito put out his arm in front of Coper which made Coper grind to a fault. Coper, instead of speaking he looked over at Kirito. Kirito simply laughs on the inside then makes a hand gesture that points far in front of him.

Coper looked ahead to see a pair of red eyes. He looked back at Kirito and laughed after saying, "Looks like you saw him first."

The player in the distance stands up after hearing this.

"How's it going, red eyes?" Kirito asked.

"Not too shabby, how about yourself?" Zaza asked.

"It's little cold for my taste." Kirito stated.

"Kirito, there's more than last time." Coper stated after looking around him. Kirito turned in every direction and must have counted out at least 5 players if not more. "Looks like you get to try out your sword again." Coper said as he unsheathed his.

XXXX  
Am I terrible, I'm terrible, Well it's Monday and I thought yesterday Saturday

Yeah I blame the fact that I'm a month and a half into summer and you'll guys will probably blame me because it's fun

I'll post to other chapters today so make sure to stick around

Hope you all like this chapter and have a great day

-Kirk


	49. Crystal

February 23, 2023

-Coper, Kirito, and Zaza-

Coper looked around. Each player besides him and Kirito had an orange cursor. They were prepared to kill. Coper took in a deep breath. If he and Kazuto were going to get out of their predicament, they most likely going to have to kill. Coper couldn't speak for Kirito but he was prepared to do what he needed to.

"You ready?" Coper asked Kirito.

"I wouldn't be a front liner if I wasn't." Kirito repeated what Coper said a couple of minutes ago.

"Now this would be a great time to have a buckler." Coper stated.

"You haven't used a buckler since the beta." Kirito said.

"Just thinking out loud." Coper said as he turned around so that him and Kirito were back to back.

Before they had a chance to bicker some more, one of the orange players that they hadn't seen before shouted for them to stop talking. Even though they didn't see exactly who it was, they could tell it wasn't Zaza, since the players voice was significantly deeper than Zaza's.

"You're going to die you beaters!" The same player scream.

Coper need to synthesize a plan and fast. A five versus two wasn't exactly weighed in their favor. He looked up and grinned, he didn't need to pay attention to all of his surroundings to get a plan, he just need to be smart.

"When the run at us, jump up." Coper said.

Kirito didn't say anything, he just simply nodded. Coper didn't need Minene Uryu's dairy to come up with a great plan, he did it just by himself. Kirito looked up to find a branch that could support his weight, at least for a couple of seconds.

All five orange players ran at Kirito and Coper. When they were about three meters away from them both of the beaters activated their sonic leap and jumped up into the trees above them.

They both started to sprint across the trees the best they could but the snowy trees weren't anything like the giant trees of floor eight. They were hard to run across and with one wrong step the could fall into the snow below.

But Coper and Kirito were some of the strongest front line runners and two of the strongest players in the beta test. Sure they never ran across trees like they were now, but they had probably the most experience out of all the players stuck in Aincrad. They knew that they wouldn't mess up and fall.

That was before a knife entered the heel of Coper's left foot.

With that Coper crashed to the ground. But while he was in mid air he managed to take the knife out of his heel and into his left hand. Coper landed with both of his feet landing firmly on the ground, his left a little less than the right.

Once Kirito was on a thick enough branch he turn around to see what all noise was about. He turned around to see Coper land on the ground, but that wasn't what surprised him. Coper wasn't running.

To this Kirito jumped down the ran over to Coper to join him. Beaters stick together. Coper looked over at Kirito and inhaled deeply as if he was contemplating something big. Kirito looked in front of him. There was five players in the distance but they were far away. Kirito and Coper must have out ran them on the trees.

"Kirito, run." Coper said.

"What, why?" Kirito asked as he looked over to Coper.

"Just run." Coper said sternly as he unsheathed his sword. He breathed heavily, he knew he couldn't too, his foot was causing him too much pain. He looked up at his heath bar

He was poisoned. "Run!" Coper repeated himself.

Kirito looked ahead and saw the players were nearing in. He would have choose within a matter of seconds or the orange players were about to make that choice for him.

Coper knew that Kirito was going to try to think it threw. Coper breathed deeply as he closed his eyes. He took his left hand, which was still holding a knife, and pushed Kirito before demanding him to leave.

"I'll go get someone." Kirito said before he ran away.

Coper exhaled. He was most likely going to die here, but he knew that, it was just the fact of how many he was going to take down with him. He slid the knife he had got from his wound into a pocket in his pants that he wore underneath his coat. He would save that for later.

The players stopped about five meters in front him and then started to circle him.

"Five against one doesn't seem very fair." Coper stated as he examined each one of the player's weapons. A two hand sword user, estoc user, two axe users, and a spear user. Either one of them had a dagger as a secondary weapon or there was six orange players that were ready to attack him.

"You beater used deserve to die." It was the same voice that spoke last time. He turned around to face him. He was the two hand sword user but there was something that he overlooked. He was still green.

He spun around and looked at everyone's cursor. Besides for that one there was one other green player, one of the axe users was also green.

"There you go finally an advantage." Coper thought. He would test them first, see if they too are willing to kill. If their not, then a three versus one seems way more feasible.

"Attack." Zaza demand all of his subordinates. Coper saw both of the green players hesitate ever soo slightly but all the didn't even let a second go by before they ran at Coper.

"It worked once it'll work again." Coper thought before activating his sonic leap skill for the second time in five minutes. That means he only had one left before he would have to wait for the cool down.

As soon as they got within three meters of he jumped up, prepared to land on a branch and run on them as he did last time.

But there was one thing that was different.

His foot.

Coper landed on the branch but it wasn't his right foot that did, it was his left. The last thing Coper heard before he fell back into the snow was the branch snapping.

XXXX

Do you want to guess what's going to happen next chapter?

Did you just read the next chapter? Okay then

There will be another chapter today and it's an important one too

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	50. Define

February 23, 2023

-Coper and Zaza-

Coper landed on the snow cover ground. He land flat on his back. It didn't hurt as much he was expecting to, probably due to the snow. He groaned. That didn't mean it didn't hurt.

He got up as fast as he could. Even if his sonic leap didn't get him up and into the trees it still got him a good distance away from the other players. As soon as he got him he brushed the remaining snow off him. The snow wasn't cold today but that was probably due to the fact he was getting attack by five or maybe even six players.

Once Coper readied his sword he looked around. There was two batches of players. One with one player and the other with four.

"Well that's not every smart." Coper thought as he ran at the 'group' with one player in it. As he got closer to the player he recognized that the player was the two handed green player. "Knocking out two birds with one stone." Coper thought immediately after seeing this.

Once he got to the player, the player didn't wait a second to cross swords.

"You're going to die you beater!" The player yelled as he charged up a downwards vertical.

"I'd like to see you try." Coper said as he jumped to left. Coper began to examine the player's features. The player looked to be about 30 maybe 40 and had very dark brown hair. His has was well uneventful. Besides for a slightly large nose there was nothing else really of note.

"Looks like you're not afraid to go orange." Coper stated launched a horizontal at him. The player blocked with his sword. It wasn't like last time. It looks like Zaza's subordinates actually have some skill. Then the player jumped back to avoid any further attacks, as though he was predicting Coper's next move.

Instead of attacking the green player another time he looked behind him to see that the two axe users were about to rush him. Coper rushed the Green one. Unlike this last one he actually seemed almost not willing to attack Coper. He backed up.

He hear Zaza scold him in the distance, but couldn't quite catch what they had said. But after a couple words Zaza stabbed the green player with his estoc.

Coper gasped as heard Zaza say, "Looks like you weren't ready." He had expected them to be prepared to kill him but each other. All he knew was that he didn't want to confront Zaza. No wonder Kirito almost was killed by him, Zaza was utterly insane and kill happy. That combination made for one efficient killer.

He turned his attention back to the orange axe wielder that had just gotten to him. He was preparing a downwards vertical to slice his head into two. Coper jumped to the right but he was just a second to slow, as the orange player's axe skinned his left arm.

Coper fell to the ground. It hurt like hell. He looked up to that the player was preparing another vertically, one that was for sure going to hit him if he didn't do anything. He had to do something, his arm may hurt like hell but if he didn't do anything, the rest of his body would.

Coper rolled to the left as the axe came down. It hit the snow next to his head. Barely missing his ear as he rolled through the snow.

He could have just died there. But once again he denied the destiny that was being forced upon him. Or maybe he was just lucky, either way he took it. Even if it was just a chance for him to roll in the snow for the first time.

Where he lived in Tokyo didn't get much snow. I t didn't ever get enough snow to roll around in and not touch the ground, like he just did. He had to admit, if it wasn't for the burning sensation going through his arm, it would have been fun.

It was amazing how a world that was created by a insane person would be able to be so real and would be able to spark many real feelings that the real world may have never done.

Coper stood back up. His competitor just got his edge, he needed to find his. After all wasn't he supposed to be a master duelist. He took the knife out of his pocket that he was saving. It's as good a time as any to use his ace.

He backed away from the orange player. The closer he was to him the more likely he was going to get an axe in his head. Coper conspired for a mere second before he came up with a plan. He had seen Sinon and Saffi do something like this, so it shouldn't be too hard, right?

Well that is what Coper is going to keep telling himself as he prepared himself to throw a knife for the first time in his life. He had gotten a hang of the sword relatively fast so the knife shouldn't be that hard. After all it was like ten times smaller.

He wanted until the orange player started to run at him before he threw the knife. The target would be easier to hit if they were closer, right? If it wasn't so Coper hand just thrown his last chance of winning down the drain.

His aim was true or maybe it was just beginners luck but the dagger hit the axe user in the middle of the neck. There was no way that was going turn the orange player blue but he knew something that would.

He hadn't seen anyone do it in the official release but in the beta he saw it a couple of times. Very few players knew about and even fewer actually used it. In the real world a beheading would be an instant kill, no way to return from it. Perhaps that was why people used it way back when.

Sword Art Online tried to imitate the real world to the best of it's abilities and that included this gersome fatality. If you detached the head of a player from the player's body, the player would instantly die. There was no delay, no chance to say finally words, no glowing before the popped. They just died on the spot.

Of course in order to make it so it wasn't too over powered, not only did few people know about it, the neck had extra defense buffs. You couldn't just slice right through, you had to weaken it first. And well Coper had but just before he brought the blade through the player's neck he stopped.

He had killed a player before this so it wasn't just that. If he did this, he would show all the orange players around him something that was debatably overpowered. But he couldn't hesitate, he could only do or not do.

It was a dangerous thought. That if he didn't then they would. If he hesitated he would pay for it dearly. He thought all of this in the matter of one second but the player said something as Coper's blade sliced through him.

"Kill me, please." The orange player pleaded. Coper didn't have a chance to ask why since by the time the last e was said Coper's named blade had already exited.

It just left him to ponder. Why would someone want to die. Maybe it was the same reason he saved Kirito. Nevertheless he just killed another person. Another person. Another person to haunt his dreams if he got out of his current predicament. Another person that he would probably join in hell.

Coper breathed heavily. He knew he wouldn't get out alive even if it was three versus one, he was wound to deeply both physically and mentally. But now it wasn't a question of how many he was going to take with him, it was the question of did he have the willpower to take another's life.

XXXX

So it's chapter fifty and I bet none of you thought it would take fifty chapters to get to floor twelve, well neither did I really.

I have some important things to talk about, so this isn't just the usual unimportant notes that you skip over.

This fanfiction is built upon three stories to forge and bind it together, Each character that I have introduced will play an important role in Aincrad and will most likely be a main character in one story.

Each story has a name and without further ado here they are:

Troika's Strength, the one that you all came here for and the name of this Fanfiction, It's meaning- the strength to pull each along

A murderer's request, I think you can guess some off the people in this story but this one will prove to be more important in the latter floors of Aincrad, It's meaning- Can you forgive yourself for what you've done

Brothers War, No doubt the smallest one and it has the smallest cast but will still matter throughout Aincrad, It's meaning- Pull yourself together until they believe you

Well that's about it, If you want to guess who is in which story, you can but most of them are incredible easy to figure out.

If you have any questions about the structure of this fanfiction the PM or Review.

This is the last chapter since I get more views on the last chapter that I post and I want people to see this note

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	51. Depart

February 23, 2023

-Coper and Zaza-

The thought of death made most people sacred. So much that the did acts that were morally wrong and called the acts of self preservation. Is that what kept the human drive running, self preservation. If so Coper didn't have that anymore but then what was his last act.

Killing someone who wished to die. Was that called helping a suicide, if so wasn't that a sin in it of itself.

Coper didn't believe in god or religion, but in what he would consider to be his final hour, Coper would do anything to make it so he felt significant. Maybe it was that that kept the human striving for more. To make it so they were significant.

He should have been synthesizing a plan to escape but Coper was instead in philosophy. Perhaps this was his down or fall. Or perhaps this was his way of redeeming himself to a god he didn't believe existed.

Coper pulled himself back to reality but he was just a little too late. As he pulled himself back into reality a spear pierced through the one and zeros of his left leg.

"It always has to be the left." Coper said as he collapsed into the ground. The spear was still in his left leg. He looked over to the spear. He was about thirty meters away. Coper figured he had to be proficient with spear throwing in order to throw that well. But now he was without a spear and that was all the Coper, the master duelist needed to win.

The orange player was running over to him. Coper would have to pull together his strength to stand up and fight but it was a lot harder than it seemed. As soon as he put pressure on his left leg in would fold. But Coper managed to get himself onto his knees.

It was probably it for him as he saw the player reach about twenty meters away from him. But then he remembered a scene for a movie he watched awhile ago. He couldn't remember the specifics but it was during a martial arts competition that he got his leg broke and he couldn't stand on it.

But instead of not giving up he continued on he stood on one leg and was able to deliver one hit that sent his opponent the to the ground. Sure it was scripted but if the writers could think of it then that means he could do it, right? Maybe that was the hurt talking for him but he had to give it the best he could.

He slowly stood up and once he was one one leg and up he saw that his opponent was about ten meters from from. Coper came up with a slightly ridiculous plan.

"I'll kick you like a did the snake." Coper thought as he prepared to jump. Once the player was within two meters of him, Coper jumped up and started to spin. Half through his jump spin kick combo he realized he slight factor that might change everything.

He kicks with his left. And well the player didn't stop advancing at him. Instead of kicking him with his foot, he was about to smack him with the blunt end of his own spear. Coper say as the spear hit the player's head but he would have never predicted what was going to happen next.

Neither did player, or well any scientist that ever existed. Apparently Coper was going fast enough that the blunt end of the spear entered the player's head and came out the other side. And also apparently the blunt end of his spear did enough did enough damage to turn the orange player blue, but not before they got say something to Coper.

"Die you beater." The player said to him as he exploded. Coper laned back on the ground surprisingly up right. He would have probably sprained his foot if it was the real world but yet again he probably would have broke his foot after trying a stunt like that in the real world.

The only thing that was keeping Coper upright was the fact that the ground was covered in snow which shaped around his foot and gave him enough support to barely keep himself upright. He couldn't move efficiently but he could duel if his last was any indication. He looked up at his health bar. He was just under half and the poison had finally worn off.

"Come at me Zaza." Coper shouted. The spear was doing more damage then he could heal off and if he took time to take it out he would get attacked by Zaza before he would get it out. Healing crystal were also out of the question since he would have drink them.

"I'd rather have my leader deal with you." Zaza said.

Before he was able to get out a sentence the two handed sword user spoke. "I'll kill you, you beater." He said right before he started to run at Coper. But he didn't get far as he was stopped by Zaza's arm.

"That's enough Kuradeel, or do you want to turn up like Jack?" Zaza asked but didn't listen for answer as he looked back at Coper. "Surprised?" He asked Coper.

"Not really, I guessed he would be here." Coper stated.

"Well that's too bad." PoH said as he came out of the trees to the right of Coper. "How did you like my gift?" PoH asked.

"Next time could you have hit my right foot, this one cramped now." Coper stated.

"I was aiming for your right but you were moving too fast." PoH stated.

Coper looked around. Him and three orange players. It didn't matter that one of them was green he was still orange in Coper's book. He looked up into Zaza's eyes. Zaza's red eyes. They were the eyes of a murderer. He wasn't just ordinary orange player he was more dangerous.

He was red player. More dangerous and more insane. A killer that couldn't be classed with the common thieves. A red player. He like that. It suited a killer ten times better than orange did.

"You'll are red players!" Coper yelled.

"Haha, red players, I like that." PoH said as he threw another knife at Coper. Coper easily deflected it with his sword. He may have been severely injured but he wasn't but to let another stray knife into his body.

"You have to come at me if you want to hit me." Coper stated. He could see that the two handed swordsman named Kuradeel definitely want to run at him but Zaza was stopping him.

"Valiant effort Coper, I have to say you have been our hardest target so far." PoH stated.

"Target?" Coper repeated confused.

"Oh you didn't know yet, well we get paid to kill." PoH Laughed. "I don't think you could guess who paid for yours." PoH continued to laugh. Right after saying this he threw another knife at Coper but yet again he deflected it but that was just arouse. Zaza had also thrown a knife.

Coper didn't realize that last fact until it entered his left hand. "It had to be the left." Coper said as he dropped his sword in the snow. The little pain that was just brought to him was enough for him to lose the little strength he had left. He fell to the ground expected his death to come from a thrown blade but he heard footsteps walking towards him.

"And since you so difficult I'll tell you the name of our employer." PoH said right before he told Coper the name. Once he told Coper the name he stabbed him in the stomach. The right side of Coper's stomach was entered by Prince of Hell's blade.

"Thanks." Coper said.

"For what?" PoH said confused.

"Getting my right." Coper laughed. With that being his last in line Coper burst into millions of blue shards as he could almost feel the nervegear frying his brain.

"Coper!" Kirito screamed from the distance. He was too late but just by a couple of seconds. If he had just ran a bit fast maybe… No he could avenge his death.

"Dammit." Kazuma said next to him. If he was about to catch a player killer his job just got ten times harder now that they were alerted to their presence. With that he ran at the players but not anywhere near the speed of Kirito.

He knew that Kirito was fast but he had never seen him this fast. He was up to par with Asuna's speed if not even faster. He had a will to fight more than he had seen for almost everyone. His will to fight was the same as his brother's. They were both trying to avenge someone.

All three of the player killers started to run away but PoH was the farthest back and he was the first one Kirito caught up with. He attacked as soon as PoH was about two meters away from and after his third horizontal his sunstriker finally ripped through PoH's legs causing him to fall.

Kirito grasped his sword with both hands a prepared a sword skill aimed for PoH's chest.

"Kirito no!" Kazuma screamed as he caught up with him. He needed him if only to find the other killers, but still taking a life was something that would stick with Kirito forever. If anyone should do it should be him, he wouldn't want a teenager to have blood on his hands.

"I need him to find the others." Kazuma said once he caught his breath. He looked to see that Kirito's blade was centimeters away from PoH's chest. He could see Kirito shaking, he was breaking, he needed a break.

"Here's some col, go get yourself a bite to eat, I'll handle him." Kazuma said as he opened up a trade window with Kirito. Kirito dropped his sword and accepted the one sided trade.

PoH laughed and said, "So this is how a legend falls, can't even kill anymore." Without even hesitating for a second Kazuma pushed his blade through PoH's arm. To this PoH left out a high pitched scream.

"And this is how a killer falls." Kazuma stated. "Kirito leave, go." Kazuma said as he opened up his inventory and materialized some rope.

"O-Okay." Kirito stuttered as he grabbed his sword and stood up. Instead of Walking towards the exit he walked towards where Coper had died and picked up Coper's sword. "Thank you… Kazuma." Kirito said slowly as he left the forest.

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Hello everyone, hope you all enjoyed probably the most chapter so far and I'm doing a test.

So the interesting part about uploading multiple chapters at the same time is that the last chapter is the that gets the most views and the first one gets the least.

And I want to see if I can change that with the author's notes, so thank you to all of you who came from a latter chapter

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	52. Domestic

February 23, 2023

-Zaza and Kuradeel-

Once they were a safe distance away they both stopped to catch their breath. Zaza had a plan, one that he couldn't carry out but he knew Kuradeel could. Zaza didn't particularly like Kuradeel and he wasn't the one who found him either, that was PoH.

Kuradeel wasn't what you called a killer or a red player as it was just deemed. He was more of a beater hater, and an extreme one at that. He had the instinct to kill, if it was a beater he was killing. Even so he sloppy and had no patience but still Zaza need him for one last task before he would kill him.

Zaza looked around. He knew the place where he was at. He had been one time before and he had killed someone there. But there was something more interesting that happened there. He had seen a frightened thief there.

The info broker told him his name was Johnny Black and that he was a solo player but that's all that the one thousand col got him. But reminiscing wasn't going to help him get Prince of Hell back now was it, he had bigger plans he needed to enact.

"Kuradeel, I have a plan to get PoH back." Zaza started but before he could continue he got cut off.

"Yeah have fun with that, I am getting out of here." Kuradeel stated as he turned his back to Zaza and started to walk away.

"You can't out of this, if you do I'll do everything in my power to kill you." Zaza retorted.

"Like you could, I'm going to join a front line guild then I'll get high enough levels so you can't even touch me." Kuradeel stated as he turned around. When he turned around Zaza could see a smirk across his face.

"Then we might as well make this quick then." Zaza said as he unsheathed his estoc. Without even a millisecond of hesitation Zaza was on Kuradeel's tail.

Kuradeel didn't take the time to take out his sword he just turned around and ran. He knew that Zaza was faster than him but he hoped by some miracle of god something would stop Zaza and he would get out safely.

Sure he could have expected a knife to do the trick but a knife that was just laying on the ground. No the was absurd but that is what stopped Zaza. Zaza had just gotten up to him when he stepped then consequently Zaza ran over and he stopped.

Kuradeel didn't know what happened afterwards but all that matter to him that he didn't have what he considered to be a psychologically insane killer on his tail.

Zaza picked up the knife. He barely remembered it all but he remembered it or at least he thought so. If his memory wasn't failing him in his mid teens, Johnny black had thrown this at a satchel but missed. Then and idea hit him.

If all went according to plan a green player would keep their cursor green. Now all he needed to do was find Johnny Black, convince him to join him in his plan, and then enact the plan. All in about a couple days.

He pulled up the item and saw the item was own by Johnny. There's part of step one completed. Now he need to find an item. The item in question was a player tracker. He knew that the volffs in the snow plans dropped them but their rates were way to low to to make it so he was able to get it in a couple of minutes or even hours at that.

A player tracker could locate any player's movements for one day as though the were on you friend list. Granted you have an item the player owns, if you didn't then it did nothing. It also was a one time deal, after he would use it would break into blue shards.

He was okay with this fact as he only need to use it once and he had a pretty good idea of where he could buy one. It dealt with a certain info broker, after all his motto was he could get anything you need, just ask.

Zaza had the same thought every time he heard this. Don't ever become salesperson. Would he say this to his face face. Hell no, he was the only info broker that would actually do business with him.

XXXX

"Twelve thousand, it's ten thousand at market value!" Zaza exclaimed.

"I marked it up my usual twenty percent." The info broker said calmly.

Zaza groaned. He may be annoying but he was the only info broker that would help orange players. Zaza was about to reach for his estoc but he stopped himself. If he was going to get his partner back he need to not kill the info broker.

"You took that from a movie." Zaza stated as he sent twelve thousand col to the info broker.

"Here you go." The info broker said as he gave him the player tracker.

"You're sufferable." Zaza whispered under his breath as he left their meeting place just outside of the floor ten market.

He took out the knife and place on the player tracker. He didn't know exactly how to activate and he wasn't about to lose another thousand col for that information. But it seemed it was working as it started to glow blue and then it exploded.

"Wait what." Zaza said confused as he picked up the knife off the ground. He scratched his head as he had quite possibly the dumbest look on his face. He stood there for a couple of minutes before he opened up his friend tab on a hunch.

He saw a blue highlighted name along with the thirteen other names he saw.

Johnny Black.

Zaza laughed. Only if there was an easier way for Kayaba to have that work. Most people would have cursed Kayaba off but Zaza and the 'red players' had respect for Kayaba. After all he gave them a world to run around in without in rules.

He looked for wear Johnny was until he found him on floor eleven. Zaza hadn't been there personally but he had heard from some other players that it was a massive mountain region with gorgeous views.

Having lived in Tokyo and he went to an ultra hard school he spent most of his days studying and if he wasn't then he was playing games. He had never seen a mountain except in pictures. Sure he wasn't about to go see one in real life but it was more real than a picture

XXXX

He stood at the edge of the mountain. He exhaled. There was nothing he had seen like it. Almost nothing compared to seeing it. He pulled open his friends list then quickly located Johnny. He was down the mountain and a couple of paces to the left. About five minutes of walking if Johnny didn't stray too far.

Zaza unsheathed his Estoc the quickly made his way down the mountain. He quickly noted to himself that the walk down was painful. He was probably never going to come back to this floor. Even though he did kill for a living he still had to grind levels.

Once he made his way to Johnny he stop once he saw him about thirty meters away from him. He watched as Johnny pulled out knife after knife. He would throw it, cut with it, and stab with it. Zaza could tell he had skill, maybe not as much as him but he still had enough skill to carry out his task.

"Hey Johnny." Zaza said as he walked into the clearing where Johnny was.

XXXX  
If you're wondering where's Kirito, laughing coffin is more important

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter!

If you have any questions or concerns feel free to broadcast them

I just realized that the last chapter is the longest chapter by one word so yeah, longest chapter hype!

Have a great day

-Kirk


	53. Dolor

February 23, 2023

-Zaza and Johnny-

Johnny didn't recognize it immediately but he did recognize the voice's owner. The red eyes of the owner could only be one person. He had only seen that from one place. And he had the same feeling to do what he did then.

Run!

But he couldn't, not this time. This time he was frozen in fear. Maybe it was the fear of dying, not being able to return to the real world. But he didn't want to return to the real world. If anything he would rather live in this world than the real one. At least in this world his horrid past didn't follow him.

That didn't mean he wanted to die. The drive to live is something all humans are born with and all humans live with. Perhaps that is what kept him alive all those years. Maybe that's what kept him alive in the game.

Before he spoke he gathered all of his strength together to say one lonely word, Hello. It wasn't as firm or as menacing as he wanted it to be but it didn't come off as weak. It had a lot a umph to it.

"He speaks, I have request of you." Zaza stated as he pulled out his estoc. "And if you decline or fail you'll taste my blade, understood?" Zaza asked as he ran his hand across his blade.

"Blackmail then, okay." Johnny stated. He didn't expect for the orange player to be that forward but it didn't surprise him that much.

"One of my fellow comrade was caught, your job is to break him out. I expect them to be organizing some sort of prison right now but he is probably just turn to a post." Zaza stated. "He was taken captive by Kazuma, he wields a shield and spear, got it?" Zaza asked.

"Yeah, where is he then?" Johnny asked.

"Floor one." Zaza said as he pulled open his friend menu a showed it to Johnny. Johnny took a mental note of where the orange player's comrade was. He was going to ask why his name was on the list but he refrained himself from doing it.

"What's your name?" Johnny asked.

"Zaza, now scram, you have a job to do." Zaza said as he closed his friend page.

Johnny walked away. Sure he was getting blackmailed but it wasn't too bad. He was about to get a thrill in a life that void of really anything most of the time. Perhaps that is why stole, it was thrill inducing, it gave his heart a reason to work.

Once he walked far enough to where the trees and bushes didn't obstruct the view he looked up. He sighed. It looked like a long walk at the top but at the bottom he couldn't help but wonder, what were you thinking Kayaba!

Johnny pulled out a teleport crystal and teleported back up to the top. The used the warp gate to teleport to floor one.

Johnny inhaled slowly. It had been awhile since he had been in first floor. As soon as floor two was unlocked he teleported out of floor one just like almost every other capable player did. He looked around the main a remembered the massive hooded player that appeared in the sky. The red hexagons the stretched across the sky.

He couldn't take remembering the events, they were all too bad. He continued to look around as the he could almost see all of the players running at were Kayaba had disappeared from. Screams of despair echoing throughout his head.

His eyes fell on the ledge or more specifically the memories associated with that particular ledge. Anyone who stayed in the plaza for about an hour after Kayaba disappeared had the same memories as his. It was the leaping ledge.

People started to jump from that ledge on the hunch that Kayaba was just playing a sick prank on them. That was the couple hundred. Johnny had a front row seat as he saw and heard over hundreds of players shatter into shards.

He even considered jumping himself but he didn't. After it was clear to most players that they were stuck. And yet players kept jumping and consequently dying. Some from denial and others who just couldn't handle it.

In all Johnny would say at least one thousand lost their lives to a ledge. That was one tenth of the games population gone before nightfall had even came. Their chances so survival were pretty bleak and their Johnny was, about to break out one of the most dangerous players the game had ever seen.

If he did it most people would him dumb or stupid but in reality it was an act of self preservation, right? Self preservation was in itself a basic instinct of all human beings, but what was this. In reality he could just hid inside the towns for the rest of his days and nothing would happen.

So it wasn't an act of self preservation, it was a choice. A choice on who lived. Him or the tens maybe even hundreds of people that would die if broke out Zaza's accomplice. And it didn't even guarantee that he wouldn't die, he didn't even know if Zaza was telling the truth, Zaza could just kill him even if he did succeed.

Johnny pulled out his knife. This would be what he would use if he were going to break him out. He took the knife and hide it up his left sleeve. Quick and easy access. That what he need right? In inhaled once again.

He could be killing hundreds of players by one simple act. An act that could define him. He looked around for one building. He didn't exactly remember the name of the place nor did he really care. Inside the building was the memorial for all the fallen players.

He personally had never been inside since the place was filled with sorrow. As he walked he saw three other people inside. One was a girl she looked to around level one with the clothes she was wearing. She was in the starting clothes and she balled up in front of a column of names.

The second was a man. He was of the bulkier type and had a two hand sword sheathed on his side. He continuously hit the memorial in the same place. He presumed that he was hitting the name of one of his fallen comrades. He was in white and blue, which was the signature color of The Knights of Glory.

The last player was a boy. No less than 13 years of age he was sporting a black coat. On his back he had a black scabbard that had a white sword sheathed in it. He also had another sword out in his hands. It was silver and had a fancy handle. Both of the swords look rare and Johnny would have attempted to steal them if he wasn't in a town.

He looked at the number in the left hand corner. It tallied up all of the players who have died so far.

2653 dead

That was over a fourth of the starting players dead. The front line was up to floor twelve now. A fourth of the players dead and they haven't even gotten halfway to a fourth of the way up.

He took out his concealed knife and rested it in his palms. What he was about to do could change the game entirely. But if he didn't do it his name would be up there and there would be no one crying because of it. Whether he died or was stuck in the towns neither of those scenarios he wanted to live.

He could do this and he was going to do this. He was going to break out the most dangerous orange player Aincrad would come to know.

XXXX

Hello everyone that only tunes in for the last chapter, you know who you are

I highly recommend you read chapter fifty one because not only is it the longest chapter(By one word) but it also is probably the most important chapter to date.

If you don't feel like reading then well I can't force you but i can always spoil it for you.

Kirito died!

If you believe me then you didn't read the chapter, If you don't believe I would kill of Kirito this early, you're probably right but that doesn't mean I won't kill off anybody else

Anyways hope you have a great day!

-Kirk


	54. Distinct

February 23, 2023

-Johnny Black-

How to break out a killer? This is what Johnny needed to answer. He couldn't just cut him out. Kazuma would probably be on his highest guard and would have his prisoner in his sights.

"What was his name anyways?" Johnny asked himself. Zaza hadn't told him. He tried to remember the names that were on Zaza's friend list. When he had seen the list he tried to keep a mental note of which names seemed murder heavy or unique. Only one name caught his attention.

Prince of Hell.

If Johnny was a murder he would have a name like that. Johnny looked back up at the memorial. He had seen from his own eyes hundreds of players kill themselves. But that lead Johnny into another question. How many players had died fighting?

He looked at the players in the room. Both the girl and the man neither seemed to be mentally stable at first glance. With continued looking at them he could tell that they couldn't answer his question.

But the last player, he probably could. The last player seemed calm and collected for being in a place that broadcasted all of the players who had died. If any of the players could answer Johnny's question it was him.

Johnny walked over to him and tried to awkwardly start a conversation. "Hey." Johnny said. All he got from his attempt was simple turn of the head and a glance that didn't last for more than a couple of seconds.

The eyes he saw, he recognized. Not the psychically aspects, though the eyes were as dark as the players hair, he recognized the emotion that came from them. After all he knew them way too well.

There was a mixture of sadness and anger but that everyone knows. He could tell that there was something else in his eyes. Johnny didn't know the exact word for it, but he knew the feeling. It was feeling of he could have done more.

"Hey , I'm sorry if this is prying but the person you're mourning over, did they die fighting?" Johnny asked in his most calming voice he had ever done before. Not to mention but he also assumed that not only did the player just lose someone but they also saw it happen.

"Yes." The player said quietly and mournfully. With that all said he walked away from the memorial. Johnny didn't even get a chance to ask whether or not he that it was a good thing. That was his follow up question.

With his little conversation with the teenager his interest were only peaked, Johnny also walked out of the memorial. He needed to get on with the plan, but first he need a distraction. But how was he supposed to distract and break out Prince?

Johnny needs an accomplice but it's not like anyone would help him break out a killer, at least not any sane person. Maybe he could pay someone to cause a distraction. Johnny pondered at trying to figure out what would distract Kazuma.

"Well if he was trying to capture criminals, then wouldn't a criminalistic act catch his attention more than anything else." Johnny finally concluded his thoughts with that statement. But how was he supposed to not only commit an act that would be deemed criminalistic, he also had to break Prince out.

Only if breaking Prince out would count but alas it didn't. He could try to convince someone to join his plan but most people wouldn't do it for all the col in the world, much less the twenty thousand he had in his possession.

So he had to do it all by himself. And how the hell was he supposed to do that? The answer came to him almost as fast as the last question did. He would have to get Kazuma away from Prince then circle back to Prince to cut him loose.

Johnny had a high enough sneaking skill that the circle back around wouldn't be too hard and if Kazuma had a shield then out running wouldn't be hard either. Just how was he going to get Kazuma's attention.

If he attacked someone he would do doubt get the attention of too many players. The only other criminal thing he could think of was stealing. And he was good at it. Johnny took his knife out of his sleeve and put it into his pants pocket. After all, if he was running the knife would fall out.

Johnny pulled up his map and walked over to where Prince was on Zaza's map. He instantly recognized the building that they were standing in front of. It was the base for the Aincrad Liberation Army.

The building resembled a large church except for the fact the windows had bars. If it were in the real world, Johnny could look up to see a cross. Instead there was a bell in it's place. But the building didn't matter much to Johnny. It was just another obstacle in his way.

Kazuma was standing lean up next to the door that lend inside. He had his shield on his back and his spear in his hands. Johnny looked at him for couple of seconds then decided that he was going to attempt to take his spear. Prince was tied with ropes to the barred windows.

How was he supposed to make someone lose their hold on their weapon. The answer came to Johnny relatively fast. He was going to stab Kazuma.

Johnny cracked his knuckles. It was do or die time. He took back out his knife. Johnny was going to run at Kazuma from the side to avoid initial attention.

Johnny ran. He ran as fast as could. He ran faster than he have ever done before. Once he was about five meters away from Kazuma he readied his knife and with a second more the knife was in Kazuma's side.

"You." Kazuma grunted as soon as he felt the pain enter his side. Johnny ignored Kazuma and snatched his spear for between his hands. He turned around and ran perhaps a little bit slower that he did on the way in but he was still faster than the police officer that was chasing him.

Once Johnny got to the edge of the church he made right and continued to run. His whole entire plan evolved around Kazuma being dumb and following him. Which to Johnny's liking he was.

Once he reached the next point he could turn right he did. But only one thought was cruising through Johnny's head. And it was totally the wrong thought to have at a time like this. But what did the players that were watching them think they were doing, and if they were right, why weren't they stopping him?

Johnny round the next corner but not without sneaking a peek behind him. To his liking Kazuma was still trailing behind him. Johnny continued to run and finally after one long sprint he got to Prince.

"That.. was… one big… building." Johnny panted while trying to catch his breath.

"Hurry up and cut me loose." PoH said curtly as he moved his arms out. Without even saying a word, Johnny obliques and cuts Prince loose.

"Thanks, now we have to run." PoH said as he stood up and massaged his wrists.

"What, why?" Johnny asked.

"The town guards are going to start to attack." PoH stated as he took off in a sprint.

"Seriously, I thought the hard part was over." Johnny complained as he too broke out in a sprint.

XXXX  
"Well there you go." Johnny said once he meet back up with Zaza. He tries to leave them but PoH grabs his arm.

"You're not leaving, you're joining us." PoH stated.

Johnny groaned and said, "And if I don't you kill me."

"Yeah, besides if today is any indication it helps to have a greeny around." Zaza stated.

"Well I guess I have no choice then, Johnny black at your service." Johnny said as he bowed slightly.

XXXX

Well that's the end of johnny running along by himself, but we can get the good stuff!

And probably what everyone has been waiting on, the main characters, or character.

I'll upload two other chapters today so please check them out if you have the time.

Thank you all for reading and a special thanks to everyone how has favorited, followed, and reviewed

-Kirk


	55. Disconsolate

February 23, 2023

-Kirito-

Kirito walked out of the memorial. He wasn't going to spend much more time in the place but his time was cut short by a slightly nosy player. Kirito wanted nothing more than to be alone. The memorial isn't exactly a place where he wanted to spend time in.

Why would Kayaba even put a place like that in the game. He knew what is was therefor from his perspective. It was to keep a running tally of everyone who had died, which in itself wasn't exactly something people wanted to know. But what was Kayaba's reason. Perhaps it was just to mess with them.

Well that was all Kirito could come within the time it took him to get to the warp gate. WIth that in mind he teleported up to floor ten. He didn't want to be at floor ten but he had something he needed to do.

After this visit to floor ten it was probably going to be the last time he was going to be on the floor. Even if it was the main market. Kirito still had Coper's sword in his right hand. He wasn't going to keep for much longer, he had a sword from Coper he didn't need another one.

As he walked through the blacksmith's door he heard the wind chimes go off. If was about the most calming sound he had heard all day. He looked around. More of the showcases have been filled and the shelves on the back wall are mostly filled.

"Just a second." He heard Liz shout from the back room. He heard her mutter something else, presumably to a person in the back room. He heard her respond but he couldn't quite tell who it was. Maybe it was the wall that kept him from knowing or it was his lack of caring that did.

"Oh, hey, what do you need?" Liz asked as she entered the room.

"Business is really booming isn't it?" Kirito asked as he looked around the shop.

"Yeah, Klein's guild comes in a lot." Liz stated as she made her way to Kirito. "Do you need anything?" She asked again.

"Yeah, I have a bit of a strange request." Kirito stated.

"Shoot." Lizbeth said.

"I want you to take this sword back." Kirito said as he extend out his arm to give Lizbeth the sword.

"Why?' Liz asked as she took the sword out of his hands.

"That doesn't matter, I do have one request though." Kirito stated. "Don't sell it it." Kirito said as he turned around and walked towards the door.

"Thanks, I'll keep it as my masterpiece." Liz stated as she put it on the last remaining shelf spot. Kirito held up his hand and a peace symbol as he walked out the door.

Kirito exhaled as soon as the door closed behind him. He could still hear the wind chimes going off. Kirito ran his hand through his hair. He had done this many times before, usually followed with a scratch of the neck or head. But this time it was just to think.

He need to cool off. Kirito needed to relax. What was the best way he knew how, grinding of course. He remember the early days of the beta where he would play for hours on end, just by himself killing mob after mob.

He met Asuna about a week into the beta and Argo only a day before. He met Coper about halfway through the beta, when he tried to kill him by setting off a trap. The trap however backfired and nearly killed Coper and barely even scratched Kirito.

After that he and Coper joined forces and made it all the way up to floor eight in the month that they were together. They even meet up in the real world a couple of times after the beta. Kirito however never made a party with Coper since it really wouldn't have been a party it would have been a duo.

Kirito opened up his menu and went over to the party that he had started a while ago. Soo much had happened since then he didn't even remember exactly what date he had made it. But it wasn't a party any more, it was more of a duo.

With that in mind he choose to dissolve the party. Sure Asuna would be made and flustered a probably follow him into the dungeon that he was about to enter, but he didn't care. It's not like the party did anything useful, she already had him friended and could track him if she pleased.

Kirito walked back over to the teleport gate and teleported to the twelfth floor. KIrito had only been to the floor once and that was right after the boss raid. He looked around to see if he could find and NPC that sold teleport crystals. He did but the price was one thousand col over the NPC on floor ten.

Floor twelve was a massive cave system. Not a single ray of sun on the entire floor. From what Kirito had heard from Argo was that the dungeons were more dangerous from the others. The dungeons also wielded better loot.

Argo told him that the dungeons were more dangerous due to the lack of light in them. Apart from the occasional torch the only light source that was in the dungeon came from a monster that commonly spawned in.

But that was just about all that he knew. He suspected that Argo knew a lot more than she told he but it was probably behind a mountain of col. And believe it or not, Kirito actually wanted to keep some of his col.

With all of this in mind he entered one of the dungeons and to his liking it was slightly bigger than he suspected. The dungeon was a bunch of adjacent tunnels connect to each other. The ceiling of the dungeon was about a meter higher than Kirito's head and that tunnel was just wide enough so that six people could walked next to each other.

Kirito walked along the tunnel without much interference until he spot a lizard on the ground. It was glowing a light shade of blue as it ran away from Kirito. Kirito chuckled. So much for being a fearsome dungeon, the only Kirito had seen in the entire dungeon was a scared little lizard.

But Kirito was wrong. He realized this once he turn the the corner and almost walked into a lizard. It was the same lizard that had been running away from him but now it was ten times its original size.

Kirito back away nearly tripping over his own feet. Besides from the obvious size difference it wasn't glowing a light shade of blue and more, it was glowing a dark shade of red. Then it opened it's mouth. It had large teeth at least the size of Kirito's hands.

Once Kirito put three meters between him and the lizard Kirito readied his Sun Striker and prepared a sword skill. Once the lizard charged at him he unleashed his seven slash combo on the Lizard but that wasn't enough as lizard was barely brought to half.

Taking advantage of Kirito's openings, the lizard bit down on Kirito left arm. Kirito screamed but as he did he plunged his sword into the lizard's mouth. The lizard broke into millions blue shards due to this.

"HELP!" The scream came from somewhere deeper in the dungeon.

XXXX  
Hey look it's Kirito, he's back!

I'd like to take this time to address the most recent review on this fan-fic. It asked the simple question of is it going to Kirito/Asuna or Kirito/Sinon.

Though I am not going to answer this question I will limit it to two possibilities, Asuna or Sinon. Sorry to all the fans of other pairs but Kirito will not have an interest in them

With that said I would like thank you all for reading and urge to to follow this fan-fic, I post multiple short chapters on Sunday and I wouldn't want anyone of you to miss any of them :)

-Kirk


	56. Demise

February 23, 2023

-Kirito-

The scream was from a girl. It was desperate and she was at least a good distance away. Kirito heard her scream again and without a second of hesitation he ran to try to find her. But there was one problem. The dungeon was intended to be a complex maze.

And that it was. With every turn Kirito felt as though he was entering the same tunnel. He was getting nowhere. Even if he was getting closer he couldn't tell. Each tunnel looked the same as the last.

With each turn he was getting more and more frustrated. He wasn't fast enough to save Coper from PoH and now a simple dungeon was outsmarting him. He rounded another corner and found a small dark blue lizard. It was bigger than the light blue one but not by much.

It started to run away from Kirito but unlike his last encounter he chased this one. As Kirito continued to chase it, the lizard's light slowly got light as Kirito got closer to it. He followed it for a couple of minutes until it lead him into a clearing with a bunch of other lizards and lizard eggs.

Kirito sliced a couple of medium sized lizards then he could see that their was a clearing in the middle. In the middle there was a girl surrounded on all sides by giant lizards. They were all either glowing a dark red or a dark purple.

The girl in middle looked to be eleven maybe twelve. She wielded a shield and a sword. Her hair was black and bobbed. It reminded Kirito of one person. His younger sister Suguha. Or should he say, his younger cousin Suguha.

His relationship with his cousin was a difficult one. When he was one his parents had died in a car accident leaving him to be raised by his aunt. She raised him like he was her own he even had a 'sister' Suguha. This was all changed however when he found out that he was adopted.

When he asked his aunt she told him everything, about who she adopt him, about how Suguha wasn't his sister. This is when he gave up kendo and took up online gaming. He noticed that a riff had grown between him and Suguha and she probably also noticed.

But the riff between them wasn't something that they could fix with words. It took time and effort to fix what he had broken. A simple conversation wouldn't fix his mistake. If he got out of Sword Art Online that was one of the first things he wanted to fix.

"HELP!" She screamed again. She only had a couple of meters between her and the lizards. To make matters even worse her health was just above the red.

Kirito readied his sword with a sword skill then powered his way through several large lizards before he made to her.

"You okay?" Kirito asked once he got to her.

"Do I look okay?" She retorted back. "Sorrysorrysorry, I just…" She started to speak almost too quickly from Kirito to understand then suddenly stopped.

"Are you okay?" Kirito asked as he reduced another dark purple lizard to blue shards.

The young female player was taken aback by this. After acting so curtly towards him, he return without a shred of anger in his voice. "I just sorry for jumping at you." She stated as she stabbed a lizard. It wasn't anywhere near the level she needed to kill it but her sword still did a decent amount of damage.

"No, it's fine, we've all had our share of rough days in here." Kirito stated as he destroyed a purple lizard with his four hit combo. I mean I did just witness my best friend die in front for my eyes in the last couple of hours. "I can take care of the big ones, just keep the small ones off me." Kirito stated as another dark red lizard exploded.

"Okay." She said as bumped into his back. "S-Sorry." She stumbled over her words as she put distance between her and Kirito.

Kirito didn't respond as he had more pressing matters approaching him. In fact he three pressing matters approaching him, one red and the other two purple. Kirito inhaled deeply then exhaled loudly. Probably too loud but the girl didn't seem to notice.

"Can I use your sword for a second?" Kirito asked as he blocked one of the lizards attacks with his sword.

"Sure." She obliged as she handed him her round shield. The shield was blue with a gold trim, perfect for Kirito's intend use. It was lightweight yet sturdy. Kirito readied the shield and his sword and use his sonic leap to jump over the lizards.

All three of the lizards that were closer to Kirito all tried to penetrate Kirito with their claws, but Kirito had anticipated this. He dodge one of them and the others were deflected by the girl's shield. Once he was behind them he activated a sword skill.

The perticualuary sword skill he had never used before though he had seen it used twice. Once was in a dungeon where the end result was a bunch of blue shards and a sword in the ceiling. The second time was against the mud snake and that time it worked out perfectly.

Though Kirito had never used the sword he had heard Coper go on and on the he created an all powerful sword skill. "Well it's do or die time." Kirito thought as he activated Coper's sword skill.

The end result, Kirito would have to say was better than Coper's first attempt. All three of the lizards that were attacking him were no more plus he also managed to kill a medium sized orange lizard. Instead of ending up in the ceiling his sword was a couple of meters in front of him.

"W-Wow." The girl stammered in amazement.

"Thanks for the shield, it worked out great." Kirito stated as he threw the shield back to her.

"I hope it did, it cost me seventeen thousand col." The girl stated as she grabbed her shield out of mid-air.

Kirito went over to where his sword was and pulled it out of the ground. They were doing all right. Most of the lizards were gone and the girl was now in the low yellows.

"Thanks for all of your help." The girl stated as she killed the last lizard.

"My name is Kirito, your's?" Kirito asked but before the girl answered he heard faint

crack. Kirito and the girl looked over to the largest egg in the clearing. It had a slight crack down the middle of it. "RUN!" Kirito yelled as he pulled on the girl's arm.

But she didn't move, she was paralyzed in fear. The egg cracked open and her fears were confirmed. The lizard inside was glowing a dark black, almost so dark that she didn't even see it. It was at least fifteen times the size of the smaller blue ones.

"RUN!" Kirito screamed again but the girl didn't seem to hear him. Kirito tugged on her shoulder in an attempt to bring her back into reality but it didn't work. He looked over to the lizard that was emerging out of it shell. He looked at the lizard, he didn't usually face these bosses. He had just stumbled upon the field boss of floor twelve.

Akin, Season Broodling was the boss's name. Kirito looked up to it, the boss was at least six meters tall than him. "We need to run, NOW!" Kirito yelled as he shook the younger girl. This brought her out of her self induced paralysis but it was too late.

Kirito looked towards the boss to see it was charging up a skill. Kirito jumps in front of the girl and holds his white sword close to his body. He wasn't going to let this girl die. But what came next he could have never been prepared for.

The boss held off it's skill that it had prepared to come shooting out of its mouth and started a full on assault one Kirito. Kirito block claw after claw until he had block so many that he lost count. Kirito was tired but he knew he could block Akin's attacks. That was until Akin unleashed the skill it had held in it's mouth.

Akin started to breath fire.

"I'm sorry but I can't let her die." Kirito thought to himself as his white sword turned a shade of blue. But the girl had different plans. She ran up to him and pushed him out of the line of fire. She could only get out one word before she was engulfed in flames. Kirito heard her shout sorry before the fire began to burn her.

"No!" Kirito screamed as he watched her exploded into blue shards. He wasn't fast enough to save Coper. And now he wasn't strong enough to save her. He didn't even know her name.

He had to be faster. He had to be stronger. He picked up his sword and without even thinking, his white sword started to glow a brilliant red. He had to be stronger if he was going to see his family again. He had to be smart if he was going to see the real world.

He had to be sharper if he was going to beat Sword Art Online.

XXXX  
Well this is going to bring to a certain character aspect that I wanted to change from the Canon. In the canon Kirito is a badass that is unrealistically strong for being a fourteen year old boy. Though certain things make more sense when you learn that he has a background in kendo, but this is not how I wanted Kirito to be in this fan-fic.

I basically wanted to nerf Kirito, to make him strong enough to take out the average player but not strong enough to take out everyone of the front lines single handedly. Well, at least not at first.

I didn't want Kirito to just be strong out of the gate I wanted him to work for it. In this Fan-fic he won't be strong because he a beta tester. He will be strong since he pushed himself to be that best, not just another front liner.

I hope that my writing didn't do too bad a conveying that but this is just a fail safe because I know that writing is quite frank bad.

Hope you all had a great day

-Kirk


	57. Discomfit

February 28, 2023

-Asuna-

"Why would he do that?" Asuna asked herself as she jabbed a volff. It was the same question that she had asked herself for almost every moment in the last couple of days. She was with Liz when he had dissolved their party. Only if she didn't stop me things would have been different.

She was over at Liz's to ask how she should ask Kirito out on a date. Maybe if she had just asked and not gone to Liz she would have gone out with him on a date. Things would have been different, maybe she would have gotten her first kiss.

Asuna collapse on to the ground. Why? Did Kirito not want to be with her? How could Kirito be so nice and yet cause her so much pain? Asuna looked down at her hands. They were sweaty and red.

After all of the work and effort that she put in over the duration of the game she would think Kirito would fall for her. But why, why didn't he fall for her? She had been in the game for a couple of months now and all she could show was a rapier. It might as well be the same as the starting day.

She grasped her Malignant Crusader and stood back up. She couldn't have what happened to her last time happen to her again. She was stronger than that. She had grown since then. She had to think about herself. If Kirito didn't want her then she shouldn't force it.

But she wanted Kirito. He was the first boy that she ever crushed on, real or otherwise. Sure their were her mom's suitors but she never really liked any of them. They were trying to hard. Maybe like she was, but that didn't matter to Asuna at the moment. All that mattered to her was trying to find Kirito.

It wouldn't have been difficult if it wasn't for the fact that Kirito had unfriended her. Why did he have to… ughhhh. Why he was he so difficult? Why was he so hard to get? Wasn't it she who got to play hard to get not him?

Asuna opened up her menu and went over to her short friend list. Even with Kirito's name on it, it still wouldn't have been considered long. On her short friend list was Argo, Diavel, and Lizbeth.

She had been friends with Argo and Lizbeth since the day she got into a party with Kirito. Diavel had friended her right after the first scouting meeting. Out of all of those people Asuna figured that Liz wouldn't have Kirito friended and Argo had the greatest chance.

XXXX

"Argo wait up." Asuna panted as she tried to catch up to Argo.

"What Asuna." Argo said as she turn around and nearly headbutted Asuna in the forehead.

"I... have.. a question." Asuna said as she tried to catch her breath. "Do you know where Kirito is at?" She asked once she regained her composure.

"Wow." Argo chuckled as she pulled up her menu. "I lost that bet." Argo thought as she noted what time it was. "I am not aloud to disclose that information for free." Argo said once she closed her menu

"How much?" Asuna asked immediately after Argo's last statement.

"Sorry it's not for sale." Argo stated after she contemplated for a couple of moments. She was not about to break her promise.

"What, could you at least tell me why he left?" Asuna asked desperately.

To this Argo froze up. Asuna could have sworn that Argo's breathing stopped momentarily. Then she closed her eyes and started to breath again. Slowly albeit but she was breathing. Then Argo's hands balled up into fists. Argo let out one loud exhale before she loosen her hands back up.

"Coper died." Argo finally gets out. "The questions end here, I am leaving." Argo said slowly before she left.

Why wouldn't he at least tell her that? She knew that him and Coper were best friends and she never really got along with Coper, but not telling him. That just gave her another reason to be frustrated at him.

Asuna walked back to Lizbeth's shop. She need some time to cool off. As Asuna walked into Lizbeth's she noticed someone kneeling at one of the showcases. He had on one long white coat with a red shield on his back. He also had brown ruffled hair. She recognized him from the few encounters she had with him.

"Hey Kazuma, anything I can help you with?" Asuna asked as she walked up to him.

"Oh Liz is already making it for me." Kazuma stated as he stood up. Asuna never quite noticed how tall Kazuma was but he had at least had a head on her. As he turned to face her he noticed that he had on glasses.

"You wear glasses?" Asuna said surprised.

"Oh, these only when I'm in town." Kazuma stated.

"Doesn't SAO give you perfect vision?" Asuna asked.

"Yeah, it just help me remember the real world." Kazuma said as pushed his glasses further on to his nose.

"Okay, see you around." Asuna said as she retired to the back room. Once she was in the back room she saw Liz finishing up a spear. Choosing not to bother her Asuna took as seat on Liz's bed and started to sift through her menus.

"Hello to you too." Liz said as she looked up to see Asuna sitting on her bed. She made her list a mental note in her head, get chairs. She could tell her friend wasn't doing too well. Once she finished Kazuma's spear she went over to Asuna and sat down next to her. "What's wrong?" Liz asked.

"Nothing it's just… these last couple of days have been hard." Asuna said as she let her head fall into her hands. She was just about done. As far as Asuna was concerned her life had taken a turn for the worse.

"Hey, Asuna you're okay, take the week off from the front lines, help me here." Liz stated as she brought Asuna's head out of her hands.

"Thanks Liz, you're a great friend." Asuna said as she sat back up.

"For your first duty around here, take that spear to Kazuma." Liz stated as she point to the spear that she had been working on. With a sniff and a wipe of the face Asuna stood up and walked over to spear and started to make her way to the door until Liz stopped her.

Liz took a rag from her belt and whipped Asuna's face with it. "Now you're ready." Liz said as she gave Asuna to thumbs up with a smile. Asuna forced a smile back then walked into the front room.

"Hey Kazuma, here's your sword." Asuna said without much emotion.

"It's a spear." Kazuma chuckled as he took the spear out of Asuna's extended hands. "How much do I owe you?" Kazuma asked as he opened up his menu.

"UH, I don't know, I'll go ask." Asuna said as she turned around and walked towards the door.

"No it's fine I'll just give all that I have on me." Kazuma stated as he took dropped a large bag of col into Asuna's hands.

"What, nonono, I can't take this." Asuna said as she tried to hand the bag off to Kazuma.

"Yes you can, it still may not be enough, this is a really good spear." Kazuma stated as he twirled the spear around. "How about this, I'll friend you and if there is an complications, I'll come back." Kazuma stated as he sent Asuna a friend request.

Asuna was going to say he didn't need to but he had already sent it but something seemed off.

"What's your in game name?" Asuna asked.

"Yu, oh should've probably told you that before I sent it." Kazuma said as he scratched his head.

XXXX

Hope you all enjoyed the first Asuna chapter in a while, and also this chapter is finally on a different day after eight chapters in a row.

If you have any question's feel her to ask!

Thank you to all who have Followed, Favorited, and Reviewed

Two other chapters are going up today, hope you all have a great day.

-Kirk


	58. Derivation

Flashback

-Asuna-

"Link Start!" Asuna said once her brothers nervegear was safely onto her head. She was greeted with a rush of colors then she saw each one of her sense come online. Next she was introduced to a player creation screen.

Before even getting started with character creation she smelled the air that she was currently floating in. It oddly smelled like tissues. Asuna giggled. Somehow that smell smell better than anything in the real world, especially the suitor she was just with.

He wasn't subtle, he wasn't dignified, he wasn't nice, and he wasn't on par with Asuna ideas. She couldn't tell for sure but it seemed as though he definitely want to take her virginity. He had flew her up in his private plane, and was trying to touch her. Saying that they would do it sooner or later.

That's when Asuna slapped him. She told the pilot to land and she went went to the cabin and sat as far away from him as she could. Thankfully he didn't press the issue any further and Asuna was able to sit in peace.

Most people would say that was the worst part but Asuna thought differently, her mother's reaction was most definitely the worst part for her. When she told her mother about the awful time she had, her mother just shrugged it off and asked when she was available for the next one.

And with that she had it. Her mother, no the world. Nothing would help her, it seemed as though it was her versus the world. Asuna wanted to run away, run away from the life that was trusted upon her.

She finally decide to take her brother's offer. He had gotten into the Sword Art Online beta test and intend on playing it. But his plans were cut short when he got a raise since someone quit. He told Asuna that she could play until he got back which would be shortly after the official release of SAO.

This lend her up to the moment she was out now, what was her character going to look like. Or rather herself for that matter. She had never really played another game before and that meant this was her first time making a character.

Asuna looked around the menu until she found and option for it to be how she was in real life. She clicked that option then she was introduced to a perfect model of herself. She looked at for a couple of seconds the gasped. Were they really that big?

Then she saw a pop up appear that asked her if she was done. She looked at herself and contemplated for a second. She clicked no and went back into the customization screen. There she changed her hair to a light blue.

She finished her character off with that slight change and then the game asked her what her character name wanted to be. Asuna stared at the screen for what felt like minutes until she finally gave up. She had no ideas on what her character name was going so she just put in 'Asuna' and confirmed it.

She finally spawn in and was instantly hit by a rush of color. Somehow the virtual world was more colorful than the real world. She stretched. Asuna grabbed her hair. It was bright blue. It was as though the real world was raining and the virtual was the rainbow that came afterwards.

Asuna exhaled. She wanted to run away. Run away from the real world and her life. She wished she could stay in the virtual world forever. However she knew she would have to get up in the morning and go to school. If she didn't her mother would likely rip the nervegear off her head then ground her for life or something along those lines.

But she didn't want to go back to school. It wasn't because of all the work and the grades and tests. It was because she had no one to talk to. Each day was the same as the last, wake up, leave for school, take notes, go home, go to bed, rinse and repeat. Asuna was tired of it.

She wanted to leave. It's not like she wanted to kill herself it's just she wanted a break. A break from school, her parents and life in general. Asuna ran out into the fields. She hadn't even taken out her sword from her inventory. She didn't care if she died. Maybe if she died it would relieve the stress that had been building up.

Asuna closed her eyes and laid down in the grass. The breeze that blew across her body felt like nothing she had ever experienced before. She could have laid for an eternity, smelling the grass around and feeling the blades slip between her fingers.

That wasn't going to happen, that was if the mobs had anything to say about it. And they did. Asuna felt a boar ram into her leg but it didn't hurt. It was more of a numbing feeling and somehow, it felt good. It probably wasn't supposed to feel good but Asuna didn't care that she was slowly losing her health.

It didn't matter, she was in the virtual. Nothing matter in the virtual world. The two words were different. She could die here and the real world would be none the wiser. She felt a tear trickle down her cheek followed by many more.

Asuna's mother would've probably scolded her if she saw the state of which her daughter was in now. But the virtual world her mother didn't exist and neither did a punishment if she died. Asuna couldn't tell what her health was at but she guess that she would be like dead within the next minute or so.

But it didn't come instead she felt the boar explode on top of her leg. "Hey are you okay?" She could hear a boy ask her.

"Yeah." Asuna said as she sat up.

"Taking in Aincrad's best weather?" The boy asked as he sat down next to her.

"Yeah." Asuna repeated as she looked up at the sky.

"Well next time clear the mobs out." The boy laughed as he laid his back into the grass.

The boy was nice. Though she had only exchanged a few choice words with the boy she already liked more than the suitor she had just been with and probably and suitors she would be with.

Asuna looked up to see that she was in the low reds, whatever that meant and she wasn't healthing up. She couldn't care less. She wouldn't let a little mishap get in the way of her feeling the breeze.

She felt the numbing feeling hit her leg again but she didn't have the strength or the will to sit up and move away from it. But yet again the boy stopped it. "You need to protect yourself." The boy stated as he sheathed his sword.

"Protect myself from what?" Asuna asked.

"The boar, it was going to kill you." The boy said as though he was stating the obvious.

"Death doesn't change anything." Asuna stated without any emotion.

The boy was taken aback by this. "It does, if you die in this world you'll change in the real world." The boy stated. "Not matter how hard you try, this world will affect you in the real world." The boy said as he held out his hand to me. "Come on, let's go back to town, I'll get you a bite to eat." He said.

"Thanks." Asuna said as she took his hand. "What's your name?" She asked once she was firmly on her feet.

"Kirito, yours?" He asked.

"Asuna." She answered him.

XXXX

It all has to start somewhere right and it feels wrong not to show when they first met.

Also if you have any questions about Asuna before this event I'll be happy to tell you!

Hope you all liked this chapter!  
Have a wonderful week

-Kirk


	59. Differ

March 5, 2023

-Diavel, Lind, Sinon, Klein, Ran, Tito, Saffi, Tsubaki, Kazuma-

"Glad to have you back, Tito." Diavel said as he walked up to Tito. Tito simply grinned and shook Diavel's hand.

They were in front of the boss room. Tito looked around to notice that both Kirito and Asuna were missing. He payed this no head however, what he need to know he already did. He was just there to help them one last time.

"Tito!" Sinon said as she ran up to him. She hadn't seen him for a couple of floors.

"Hey Sinon, sorry I went missing, I had somethings to deal with." Tito stated as he turned around to face her.

"Well you're here now." Sinon said unusually happy. "Do you know what the boss is?" Sinon asked Tito. She had not seen him at the scouting meeting or the preparation meeting.

"No, what do you know?" Tito asked. With that Sinon went ahead and began telling Tito what she had learned.

The boss was a dragon tamer. More specifically his name was Volrath, Novice Dragon Tamer. As far as they could tell, Volrath had no attacks of his own but his dragon did. His dragon would fight along side him for the duration of the fight. The dragon had six health bars but Volrath had three.

While scouting they figured out that it was more effective to target Volrath, as if he was attacked the dragon wouldn't attack while he was recovering. But it was incredibly hard to hit Volrath since he sat on top of his dragon the whole entire time.

The dragon in question wasn't like the last on they face. Instead of being blue and feathered, it was red and scaled. It had limbs but it had two large wings. The dragon was about the size of your average commercial airplane.

"Is that about?" Tito asked after Sinon stopped talking for a minute.

"The dragon has a wide range of fire based attacks, but beside that yeah." Sinon stated. "Hey Tito, do you know where Kirito is?"

"No, but aren't you friended with him?" Tito asked.

"Oh yeah." Sinon realized as she open up her menu. She began making her way to her friend list but her train of thought was cut off by Diavel.

"Let's been this boss, to avenge the fallen!" Diavel shouted as he raised his sword. This met with open arms and with that Diavel pushed open the boss room doors.

Everyone looked up to see the boss. He was still in the air but it was higher up than last time. It was so high in fact, that a sonic leap wouldn't even be able to reach that distance. In the scouting mission one out of three of Saffi's shurikens would end up hitting the boss, the others fell short.

"How dare you invade my throne room." Volrath said as the players entered the boss room. Volrath had said the same thing to them when they entered the first time but Sinon's mind had been more focused. This time she looked around at the boss room.

The walls were lined with white pillars and the ground was red with patterns in the floor. Sinon certainly liked this boss more than the last one. And basically everyone had the same thought. At least in this boss room they didn't have to worry about falling through the floor.

All of the shield users jumped in front a blocked the incoming fireballs. But they were at a lost for what else to do. Volrath was to high up to be attacked by any melee attacks. Tsubaki and Ran had not predicted this and in the scouting missions Volrath was quite lower.

"Sinon I have an idea." Saffi said to Sinon after the had spent about five minutes in the boss room.

"What is it?" Sinon asked as she attempt to throw a knife at the dragon. Her knife made contact with the dragon but the protective scaling made it bounce off.

"This." Saffi said as she drew a metal ball out of her inventory.

"What is that?" SInon asked, she had never seen anything like it.

"You'd be amazed at what you find in some of the NPC shops, this is an armored ball." Saffi stated as she put on gauntlets. "And I think I can get it up there." Saffi stated.

"How?" Sinon asked.

"We all had a life before here, all I need you to do is throw it up into the air, I'll take care of the rest." Saffi stated as she got ready. Sinon took the ball and threw it up into the air. But she only threw it about a couple of decimeters up. "Well give it some umph." Saffi stated after she let out a little giggle.

"Sorry." Sinon said as she picked up the ball on threw it again. This time it went about two meters up into the air before it started to come back down. Saffi positioned herself under it and when it back down she bumped it up. She continued this process until it was very high up.

"What are you going to do?" Sinon asked as she watched Saffi bump the metal ball.

"Well, it's either I get up there and hit Volrath or I break the ball." Saffi stated as her hand started to glow purple.

"Have you ever done this before?" Sinon asked.

"Not in this life." Saffi answered as she let the skill go and she hit the ball up. Saffi watched as the ball went up. It missed Volrath on the way up but on the way down it hit him square on the head. He slid off of his dragon a fell on to the ground below.

All of the players rush him but before they could his Dragon swooped down and Volrath used his sonic leap to jump back up. But Saffi's plan had worked. The dragon was significantly lower and the other players could hit it.

That didn't make the battle any easier. If anything it made it harder, but yet at least this way they could actually do damage to Volrath on his dragon. Now Volrath's dragon was firing at them at point blank range, which wasn't exactly the easiest thing to block especially when it was fire.

Most of the DPS players couldn't attack effectively due to the fear of getting caught on fire. His dragon was entering it's third health bar and Volrath was almost through his first. Things weren't going to well, five of the tanks were already get heal as they were on fire. Diavel lend the remaining tanks but the increasing amount of fireballs that were bombarding them didn't make it very easy. Something had to be done, or they weren't going to fare very well.

"Ran, I have an idea." Tsubaki said as she started to sift through her inventory and pulled out her shield.

"Cut off it's wings?" Ran said as she readied her sword.

"I'll protect you as you go and cut it's wings." Tsubaki stated as she waited for Ran to be ready. Once she was they both took off at the boss. Ran was able to make the first cut on the dragon's wing effectively, since they had not yet gained the attention of Volrath.

But her second slash was not as lucky. Though her second slash did rip through the dragon wing she was met with a fireball on the way down. Ran crashed into the ground engulfed in flames. She was at half health. Tsubaki ran over to her friend but was greeted by Klein once she got there.

"Don't worry, we've got her, just take care of the boss." Klein stated as he gave Ran a health potion.

"Thank you, Klein." Tsubaki said as she looked back up at the boss. They didn't have the aggro anymore, thanks to Diavel and the other tanks. She need a plan. Her last didn't go according to her plan and she knew if she tried it again, she would be as lucky as Ran.

"Hey Klein, can you get on your knees for me?" Tsubaki asked once she had synthesized her plan.

"Y-You want me to propose already?!" Klein asked in alarment.

"Not quite that elegant, just kneel okay?" Tsubaki asked as she back away from Klein.

"Okay." Klein obliged, defeated. Once he was down on his knees, Tsubaki took off in a sprint at Klein. As she was on top of Klein she activated her sonic leap and jumped all the way up and on top of the dragon.

"What are you doing here you worthless peasant?" Volrath asked as soon as Tsubaki land on top the dragon.

"Nothing much, just here to kill you." Tsubaki said as she walked up to Volrath and stabbed him. She watched as his health quickly deteriorated. But just before he exploded into blue shards he said something.

"I'll be back."

And with that Volrath exploded into millions of blue dragon stopped attacking and simply started to fly off. Before it got too far Tsubaki jumped off of it.

Most off the players were confused with the sudden congratulations banner appearing but Klein wasn't. "Congrats." Klein said as he walked up to Tsubaki. "What did you get?" Klein asked as he got closer.

"Absolutely no clue." Tsubaki stated as she closed the last attack pop up.

XXXX

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter!

If the action scene is too confusing or needs some explaining, please tell me, I'd love for some criticism on it.

That will that last chapter for this Sunday the next few will be out in a week.

Also I'll be starting school so I didn't know if I can keep up with three chapters a week but I promise not to go under two.

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	60. Blooper

March 7, 2023

-Sinon-

Sinon woke up. It was six thirty which was the usual time she would have woken up to go to school. But she wasn't going to school, she was going back out into the fields to nearly die in an attempt to get closer her nest level. Just an average day in Sword Art Online.

She opened up her menu and equipped her gear. Unlike her other morning routines she opens up her friends list on takes note of where everyone was at. Argo was in an inn on floor ten, presumably still asleep.

Kirito was on floor fourteenth in one of the dungeons. He was probably going through the new dungeons since they had only unlocked the the fourteenth floor two days ago. Saffi was one floor one, either in the guild headquarters or an Inn, she couldn't tell for sure.

Tito was in the fields of floor one. What he was doing, Sinon didn't have the slightest clue. Sinon had had that if he wasn't grinding in a dungeon then he was usually in the town of beginnings but not in the fields.

Sinon contemplated going to see what he was doing but she decided not to push it. Though her and Tito weren't the best of friends, she was pretty sure she was the only person one his friend list. But then again he wasn't at the last boss raid.

She stood up and stretched. She looked around her inn room. There wasn't much to see. She had a single bed with a nightstand. Not even a chair or a bathroom. Sinon had went for the most cost effective one.

If she was in the real world, she would have went for the complete opposite. Besides the fact that almost every lost cost hotel in the real world was met either bugs or the lingering smell of death or if she got lucky both. Shino didn't want to be anywhere near either of them. Plus they came with horrid bathrooms.

Though it was true that Sinon hadn't showered in a couple of days, Shino was completely the opposite. She would take a shower in the morning before school and a shower right before bed and that was mandatory for her. That was sometimes on top off the shower she took after gym and showers she would take if she threw up.

Sinon drew herself out of her thoughts and started looking through her inventory of knives. She ten knives besides for her shadow strike, which she only used for special occasions. Most of her knives were sub par with the exception of two of them.

The knives probably needed replacing. Sinon would probably be fine if she just hit the monster's weak points. But that was just it. She couldn't just leave her life up for chance. She had asked Argo a couple of days earlier for a list of blacksmiths.

After losing a couple thousand col to the rat she had obtained a list of about five blacksmiths. Sinon had made it threw three of them without much of any success. She had wanted new knives for the upcoming boss fight but each one had either made as good a quality as knives she already or rejected her for either being and solo player or a girl or both.

The one who did craft for her was only able to craft to blades that were of satisfactory level. Though she was grateful for the knives that she got the other knives were far away in quality and the ones that she got were out of pure RNG.

Sinon looked at the next name one the list, Lizbeth. The name seemed female though she had met players that had male names that were female. These were probably the players that logged in as females. But she was female she wasn't likely to reject because of her gender.

She walked at of the inn. She had already paid for a week's stay at the inn. She was on floor fourteen and if Argo gave her the correct information she would have to travel four floors lower. She didn't doubt that Argo had the correct information, it was just a matter of did Argo give her the correct information.

Sinon made a mental note not to buy any information from Argo on April Fools and then teleported to floor ten. It been a bit since she had been on floor ten but after walking out of the teleport gate she was hit with a blast of cold air.

Not really feeling the cold air, Sinon ran all the way to Lizbeth's shop. She opened and closed the door so fast the wind chimes were really going off. Sinon reached up and silenced them as she heard a female voice call from the back room.

She didn't know exactly what she had said but Sinon was just glad that one of her problems was already out of the way. Sinon walked up to one of the showcases and looked into it. She could tell that the blacksmith here was the real deal.

"Hey what do you need?" Sinon heard from behind her.

"You must be Lizbeth right, I was wondering if you have any daggers available?" Sinon asked as she turned around and saw the female behind her.

"Yeah, just give me sec, okay?" Liz said as she ran over to her shelf in the back. Sinon turned her attention to the girl. She was wearing casual clothes, more or less start clothes that just looked better. Besides for that she was a little taller than her and had dark brown hair.

"Here you go, these are all I have in stock, but I can make more." Liz stated as she laid her knives on the showcase carefully.

"Thanks." Sinon said as she started to look at the knives. Besides for two of them, the other seven were better than what she was using. "One question, when did you craft these two?" SInon asked as she pointed at the two lowest tiered knives.

"Not recently, I don't even know why I still have them." Liz stated.

"Okay, I'll take these." Sinon said as she laid the seven knives in a neat row.

"All of them?" Liz asked.

"Yeah." Sinon answered.

"Thanks,that will be forty thousand co." Liz stated as she examined the knives.

Sinon opened her menu and dropped a bag into Liz's hands. "There you go." SInon stated as she place the knives in her inventory.

"Thanks." Liz said gleefully.

"Welcome." Sinon said as she left the store.

XXXX

Hey look it's Sinon you haven't seen her in a while and you got a look at her friends list!

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter.

Two more will be uploaded today so make sure to read them too!

Have a great week

-Kirk


	61. Brush

March 9, 2023

-Tito-

Tito had finally found it. After about a month and a half of searching he found something so small that every player would over look or not see. That was unless if they were game developer or in the alpha test like Tito.

He had found it, the hatch to the underneath of the first floor. The level ninety dungeon. One of the most dangerous dungeons in the whole game. Tito was about to step in it, at level twenty six. Tito exhaled. He had already everything prepared before hand he just need to do it.

The hatch opened up and Tito went inside. He remembered one of his co-workers saying they had found incredible hard dungeon underneath floor one. Of course Tito didn't believe him but he insisted he go with him. In the early alpha days the grass was a lot thinner and thus the hatch was infinitely easier to find.

But that still didn't help the fact that Tito was going into a level ninety dungeon, the monsters could just look at him and he would die. But alas he was prepared for this. Tito had spent what remained of his col, fifty thousand of it, to buy one item.

The ring of invisibility. Did it grant invisibility, no but for what Tito need yes. The ring of invisibility would make it so mobs wouldn't attack him for one hour, granted that he didn't attack them.

Was his adventure going to take one hour, Tito doubted that. In his run through the dungeon in the beta, he could tell that the dungeon was absolutely massive. The mob aggro was being reconfigured at the time, so it was easy to sneak past the mobs.

The dungeon was at least half the size of floor one if not bigger. Which didn't help Tito's mission. He was in there to find one room and one room alone. As far as Tito could remember or had seen, that room housed the only computer.

If Tito got to it he could start messing up the cardinal and the security system. Tito doubt he would be actually able to log people out but maybe he would be able to help the people on the outside. That was if he wasn't there.

The way Tito looked at it neither of the options were to bad in comparison to each other. Though one probably meant his death, he had prepared himself for the event of his death. His sister, though he couldn't predict how she would act, wouldn't as distraught as when they lost their mother.

After all, she was born when he was thirteen. And at that time he was just beginning learning about programing. Learning about programing took up all of his free time and he didn't have very much time to spend with his newly born sister.

Though he did get her this game to attempt to make it up, it really didn't go to plan. Keiko probably hated or at least wasn't exactly pleased with how he treated her. DId that come as a surprise to Tito, no. Apart from his mother, Tito never really made friends much less female friends.

The second option was prefered more because it didn't have the effect of dying in it. If he could somehow find a way to break into the cardinal at dismantle so of his security systems then it would give hackers on the outside world a better chance to get in and log them out.

Tito looked around the dungeon. Not much had changed since alpha testing. The dungeon was still awfully tall and wide. The walls were lined with pillars and the floor was made out of cracked stone. The only thing that had changed was the color scheme. It had the slightest hint of a dark blue in the black unlike the pitch black color it had replaced.

He looked over at the mobs he was passing. Toads, each probably as strong as the last boss the clearing force had cleared, could probably one shot Tito, if not two shot. Thankfully the ring worked, and Tito walked past them without any resistance.

Once again Tito was brought back into his thoughts, but not of his sister but of his last job. His last job was one that he quit shortly before logging into SAO. He was head of security for Sword Art Online.

Tito made the security system for the cardinal as well as the servers that SAO operated on. He couldn't help to think that if he were on the outside he could probably log everyone out. But alas he was on the inside, so he had to find a way to break his system inside of the game.

If he ever had the chance to do it again it would prove to insanely difficult. Tito had already hacked into the cardinal a couple of times but he had been moving data around not reconfiguring it. He had made a system that would take years to replicate and Nishida had made the system nearly perfect.

Suffice to say but if he wasn't stopped, he would be down in the room for a terribly long amount of time. But the outcome would be worth it as it would get them closer to getting out. An idea that everyone in the game thought about but no one considered it to happen soon if at all.

Tito rounded a corner straight and almost raid into a boss. Or at least something that miles ahead of the toads difficulty. The boss was a three headed dog, a Cerberus to be exact. Thankfully Tito stopped walking before he walked straight into it's legs. He turned around and started to head in a different direction.

That was about right. The Cerberus fit in with the location of the dungeon. The dungeon was the lowest point in the whole entire world and was under floor one. It was the Underworld, and it wouldn't have surprised Tito if he ran into Hades himself in this dungeon. Tito hoped that he didn't run into Hades as he really didn't want to see the God of the Underworld.

Tito walked around until he turned one corner and saw at the end of the hallway what he was looking for. A room, inside of it there was what looked like a bench, but it wasn't. It was the computer Tito had been looking for.

He took off in a sprint and before he knew it he was in the room gasping for air. He didn't even stop when he saw a reaper in his rear vision. Tito exhaled. Not only did he find the place in just over half the time it took him in the alpha he was finally in a safe zone. Tito was finally able to relax.

Tito looked around until he found what he was looking for in the back of the room. He had silver hair and stood at least a couple decimeters above Tito. He was wearing red and black armor.

"And here I thought I was going to get to do it." Tito stated with a grind as he faced the player. "When did you find out?" Tito asked as he sat down.

"Day two of your adventure." He stated as drew out both his sword and shield.

"Wow, can't we banter before we have our duel?" Tito asked.

"Sorry, I have some things to attend to." The player stated.

"Aw, come on Kayaba, could make time for one of your favorite people." Tito said as raised his fists.

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Soooo what do you think? I would really like to here your thoughts!

Hope you all enjoy this chapter

If you have any questions please ask!

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	62. Bloodshed

March 9, 2023

-Tito and Kayaba-

Tito jumped back anticipating his oncoming attack. The at came but Tito wasn't close enough to take advantage of the tiny opening that had been created. But that was the least of Tito's worries. Now he was in the back of the room with nowhere to go and a knight blocking his way out.

"Nice attack." Tito said as he readied his armored fists. Without even saying anything Kayaba launched a vertical at Tito. He sidestepped this without much problem and tried to launch a counter attack.

Tito's counter attack didn't go according to plan and he ended up punching Kayaba shield a couple of times. Taking advantage of Tito's lack of defense, Kayaba unleashed another vertical and this time there was no way Tito was going to get away from his blade unscathed.

But Tito also knew this. So instead of backing away to minimize the damage he took a gamble. He attempted to jump over Heathcliff while the blade was coming at him. Though he knew that the blade would hit him a lot harder than it would if he did nothing.

Tito's gamble paid off. He leapt over Kayaba's blade as it tore through his right shoulder. Though it did take out almost half of his health, Tito was no longer backed into a corner and had an entire dungeon to use to his advantage.

"What's your level?" Tito said after landing safely on the ground.

"At least ten levels above yours." Kayaba stated as he turned around to face Tito. He had planned on attacking as soon as he turned around but Tito had already fallen back.

Tito didn't really expect for Kayaba to answer but he did. Did it really help him, no. But that he means he could try and play with his ego a bit. "That means I can still damage you." Tito said as he pounced on Kayaba.

Tito used his sonic leap to jump up then on the way down he was prepared to punch whatever he could first, even if that meant Kayaba's shield. His fist connected with Kayaba's shield and instead jumping back he kicked Kayaba's leg which wasn't guarded by his shield.

Kayaba jumped back and readied his shield again. He had only lost a tiny sliver of health but it was the idea that counted. Tito was able to break through his defense in only one attack, that could lend to other ramifications.

"You like that one?" Tito asked as he readied his stance once again. Before attacking this time he charged up a sword skill, or in his case a fist skill.

"It's risky to use a skill that I created." Kayaba stated.

"You created all of them." Tito said as he let his skill rip. He knew that using premade skill combos would be dangerous when facing the creator but Tito doubt that even a person like Kayaba could remember all of them. He would just remember the dangerous ones and the ones that were most likely to be used against him. And who would ever fight him without a weapon.

Call Tito crazy or insane but that's what he was doing. Though he did have a blade still sheathed on his side, he didn't expect to use nor did he think it would be of any help. It was just there to trick Kayaba.

The fist skill he used wasn't complicated or at least Tito thought dangerous. At least for him that is. The skill was a hybrid between a dash skill and a fist skill. It would propel him forward while also increasing the attack damage for his next strike.

It hit smack dab in the middle of Kayaba's shield as Tito expected. But this was fine, if anything Tito knew that he wouldn't win by getting chip damage here and there. He would have to break Kayaba's shield if he were to win.

Tito jumped back and charged up a green skill. Very few players used the green skills because if it worked it was a low blow and if it didn't then skill would have faltered to nothing. A green skill is for inflicting durability damage.

But yet again Tito was going against the GM he had to use everything at his disposal. And that meant he could make as many low blows as he wanted. Once again he let the skill rip but this time it he blocked with his sword not his shield.

Tito felt the sword rip through most of palm before he was able to retract it. Tito jumped back and looked at his health bar. It was three quarters of the way gone. If things would continue the way they were going, he would die. If he made one mistake, he would die. If he was caught by surprise he would die. Even if a lonely monster snuck up on him, he would die.

But if he managed to invade all of those scenarios he might just save thousands of lives. And that was a bet he was willing to take, probably because he was foolish. But none the less he would try his hardest to break everyone out.

His sister, Sinon, the front liners, and the kids back at the daycare didn't deserve to be in this game. This game could take years off their life and that wasn't right. Two thousand and some players have already died and if he had to give his life so no one else would die, he would gladly do that.

He looked back up at his health bar. He could try and wait it out and get himself back up to full but that just give him the chance to make more errors. He looked back down at his hands and then remember why he had chosen to use his fists in this duel.

In the real world he had taken four different types of martial arts. He was by no means the best but he could give himself a pat on the back for how well he did. Though his love of programming and hacking would ultimately win that didn't mean that he didn't remember any of it.

He looked down at his fists. He was wearing gauntlets. Though the gauntlets didn't prevent damage they absorbed most of it. His fist were now gone and replaced with knife hands. Tito had a plan. The plan would either result him losing or him winning. But he didn't have anytime to waste, after all it was now or never.

He felt his hands start to glow. Tito breathed in and out. "Ready?" His subconscious asked him.

"I was born ready." Tito whispered under his breath as he broke out into a sprint at Kayaba. All Kayaba did was readied his sword and shield. Tito lead with his left hand this time instead of his right. His left hand was directed right at Kayaba's face.

Kayaba easily used his sword to steer Tito's left hand of course but Tito was fine with this. After all his left hand was just the distraction. Tito felt his right hand glow green as he charged it up and released it into Kayaba's shield. Kayaba had no where to moves shield and Tito's hand went straight through his shield breaking it.

Seeing that phase one and two of his plan had worked, Tito quickly retracted his right hand to his sheathed sword. Tito grabbed his sword and without using a sword skill unleashed it into across Kayaba's body.

Tito felt his sword travel across Kayaba's body, first across his stomach then across his chest until it go stuck in Kayaba's shoulder plate. Once it was stuck in Kayaba's shoulder, Tito pushed it in further.

"Looks like your impregnable defense was not so impregnable." Tito said as he looked up at Kayaba. All he got from Kayaba was a grunt of pain. "I'm sorry did that hurt." Tito cockily said as he looked at Kayaba's health bar. It was in the mid yellows. Tito grabbed his sword with his left hand and pushed harder on it.

Kayaba reached up to Tito's sword with his left hand and pulled it out. "Your blade, it did not cut deep enough." Kayaba said as he impaled Tito with his sword.

Tito looked at his health bar, it had just reached zero. "Have fun." Tito said with a grin as he exploded into millions of blue shards. Tito may have died to worse case scenario but he had planned for it.

Though his remaining two family members would be in distraught, those were the only people who be be affected badly. He hadn't made a standing impact on Sinon's life, the only person in both worlds who he considered a friend. But he was sure that Aincrad would be in a best scenario without him.

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You know what, I could have ended it right here and then all of my misery would be over but we're not even a fifth of the way. So I hope you all have enjoyed this fan-fiction so far!

If you have any questions please ask!

Thank you to all who have followed, favorited and review!

Have a wonderful day!

-Kirk


	63. Bulletin

March 9, 2023

-Sinon-

Sinon opened up her door and walked over to the bed collapsed. It wasn't exactly the easiest thing to grind with knives. Sure she could through her knives but when dealing with hordes of monster she only had some many knives.

She rolled over so that the back of her head was on the mattress. She dragged her hands across her face. She didn't want to do anything. She just wanted it all to end. She was stuck in an endless loop of fighting and grinding. She just wanted to get back to the real world.

But what she going back to? Her unstable mother. Her lonely apartment. Her school and her… her… friends. Or friend. What exactly was she fighting for? Her life in the real world wasn't anything, in fact she might argue that the life she has in Aincrad was better than her life in the real world.

She needed to get back to him, Kazuto. But he was in Aincrad too, he wasn't in the real world to get back to. So she could just talk to him here, right? No, she couldn't. She just couldn't talk to Kirito, it have the same feel as back in the real world. It was as though Kirito and Kazuto were two different people.

Just like Shino and Sinon were two different people. Sinon could feel how different she was to Shino. She wasn't restricted by the faults of Shino, she felt stronger and Sinon didn't want to be Shino. And yet she still wanted to be in the real world.

Maybe if she could just combine Sinon with the real world, maybe then she would have a great life. In the real world she wasn't burden by her past, that is the world that Sinon and Shino wants to live in.

Sinon sat up. Tomorrow would most likely be a boss fight if not then it would be the next day. She was tired even though it was only four in the afternoon. She stood up stretched then yawn and started to change into casual wear when she got a message.

It was from Tito. As she opened she noticed something different about then perhaps every other message sent in the game. It was hand written.

 _Hey Sinon,_

 _I'll cut straight to the point, If you're reading this then most likely I'm dead._

"What!?" Sinon exclaimed as she opened her friends list and looked at the friends that were listed there. She was now down one friend. Either someone else died or he died. SHe looked down her list. Argo, Kirito, Saffi, and and nothing. Sinon looked back at the note.

 _Well I should probably start at the beginning but I'll skill conception and my childhood because there really wasn't anything that happen then. Except for the fact that I'm a loner. My second job was working security for Argus or more specifically for Sword Art Online. I developed a lot behind the Cardinal(What runs this game basically) but I quit shortly after the beta._

 _My mother had just died from a heart attack. This was more or less a wake up call for me. I wasn't close at all to me family, in fact it had taken about two weeks to learn about my mother's death. So in order to get closer to my family I quit my job and got a job closer to home._

 _I went out to eat with them, Went bowling with them. I even got my sister a pet cat. But I could tell that this wasn't enough to mend the long broken relationship with my sister. She was born when I was ten so there was a significant age gap. In my teens I was always in my room, and immediately left the house after I turn 18. I think I held my baby sister once, and I don't remember any of her birth day parties._

 _So I asked Kayaba if i could get two Nervegears and two copies of SAO. After a little bit of hassling have gave, and I got two Nervegears and two copies of SAO of completely free. And I am probably the only that can say that. Was it good luck, at the time yes, Now I wished I just didn't do it._

 _Did I stop there, no. I tried to go above and beyond. As a programer, I also have extensive practice in the art of hacking and well protecting against it. Which made what I was about to do extremely hard and yet easy at the same time. I was going to hack into my system._

 _I actually got into it three times. The first time I broke an AI accidently, the second time I obtained an item and loaded it onto my player, you'll see that item on the bottom of the message. And the third time I gave myself a skill, battoujutsu._

 _The skill battoujutsu has the description, the art of drawing one's sword. It is a unique skill, one of ten. A unique skill is a player exclusive skill, that one player gets based off of criteria. My criteria was hacking._

 _I was originally going to give it to my sister but after the Tutorial I decide that I would attempt to defeat SAO, and not endanger her. So I trained and trained until I got a handle on the skill._

 _But my handle wasn't good enough. The bosses were getting harder and I was getting weaker, so I decide to play a game. I wanted to see if Kayaba would show up to the boss raids if I wasn't there. And he did._

 _Kayaba's name in the game is Heathcliff and he wears red and black armor. He is tall and has grey / silver hair. He wields a sword and shield. If you see him, do not attack him. In order for you to attack him you must have more than yourself attacking him, and I would suggest a unique skill, but it isn't necessary._

 _I died trying to confront him. I tried to bring along people but the people I would invite refused. I am aware that I didn't ask you, and that is because if we failed he would kill all of us and I couldn't bring myself to ask you._

 _I confronted him and presumably I died. Does it suck, yes. But I had everything prepared. I had this note out to be sent at four thirty and I have a few request for you. If you decline I understand, I wasn't the friend to you that you were to me, and I am sorry._

 _Here are my request, again if you don't accept them I'll understand, but I have a feeling you'll accept at least one of them_

 _Attached to this message there is couple of items, I would like you to have the bow and arrows_

 _Also there is a scroll attached to this message, it contains my unique skill, battoujutsu. I would like you to find the rightful owner of that skill._

 _And lastly there is a present and a letter attached to this message. I would like you to take it to my sister. I can't for the life of me remember her in game name, but her real one Keiko. She is in the closest Inn to the central plaza._

 _I'll preemptively thank you for all the request you complete. And last I have one piece of information I would like you to know. My real name is Tetsuhiko Ayano the Second, I was born on 2nd of March in 2000. This is me saying bye to you, may you have a great life and escape this death game._

 _P.S. Don't keep a grudge against Kirito. He may have done some less than favored things to you but he is really just trying to protect you. He's just really bad at conveying it._

Sinon scrolled to the bottom of the screen and saw a long list of items that started with, The Oak Flatbow. She took the item out and looked at it.

It was nearly as big as her and was well oak colored with the grip being carved out of oak. To saw the least, the bow held up it's name.

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So Sinon finally has a bow

Also this is the chapter that I feel that Tito ends his time in though he had died in the last Chapter. If there is anything thing that I messed up or needs clarification on Tito please tell me! But yeah, I am basically done with one of my many OC's and I would like to know if you liked him or not. Personally he isn't my favorite but my least favorite is someone else!

Hope you all had a great day!

Just updated my profile go check it out!

-Kirk


	64. Bracket

March 9, 2023

-Sinon-

Sinon took her bow and ran out of the Inn without even stopping for a second to put on her breastplate. She was excited, she felt even more ecstatic then when she got the Nervegear at her doorstep. Maybe this bow would make grind exp more safe and fun.

She ran out into the fields of floor fourteen and held her bow up to fire. She looked around for a couple of seconds until she found a binniv. She pulled the string back till it was just centimeters away from her check. She could feel the feathers of the arrows graze her face.

Her heart was slowly picking up it's pace as she held the bow. She breathed in and out in an attempt to slow down her pulse rate. Then when she felt her heart rate hit the perfect rate she let go off the string.

The arrow flew in the direction of the bunniv and Sinon watched it as her feathered arrow cut through the air with ease. Her hand held up the bow without letting it dip even a centimeter downwards. Her left hand still hadn't moved from when she let go of the string.

Her arrow missed the binniv by a couple of centimeters. "What?" This word escaped from Sinon's mouth. She was expecting to hit it on her first try but she missed. Apparently Archery wasn't something you could just pick up and do.

But for her first shot nearly hit her target. And that was nothing to be disappointed with. In fact her shot may have cut a couple of hairs of the bunniv's long tail. She took another arrow out of her inventory then loaded it on to her bow. She sighed then looked around for the bunniv.

It didn't take long to find the bunniv as it only was a couple of hops away from it's last location. Sinon brought her bow back up then started her breathing ritual. She breathed in and out until she once again found the perfect.

The feather of her arrow tickled her cheek as her eyes follow the fake bunny. Sinon started to the grip the grip harder as she her heart rate steadily increased. She closed her eyes and exhaled.

"I can do this." Sinon stated as she let go of the string. Her mind and eyes were both transfixed on the arrow, as if the arrow was only thing in the world. Her hand was still barely a centimeter off her cheek. The arrow hit the bunniv in the head.

She watched as the bunniv stuttered for a couple of seconds then exploded. Right after the bunniv exploded, a pop-up appeared before. Unlike most of the time Sinon actually read the pop-up. She just gained a new skill. Archery.

Sinon opened up the description. _The art of shooting with bows and arrows._ "Could this be unique skill?" Sinon asked herself as she opened her friend list. After taking in the fact that Tito was no longer on her list, she clicked Argo's name and started a PM.

 _Hey Argo, I'll cut straight to the point, I want to know if you have Archery list on your skill list. Don't bother asking for money, I have some info that I think you'll want._

Sinon sent the message without revising a single line. She closed her menu then she slung her Bow across her chest. Despite not wanting to stop archery practice she started her way back to town. Argo no doubt didn't want to be kept waiting, especially if her promise didn't include money.

XXXX

"So you had information for me." Argo said as she examined Sinon. She had changed her outfit significantly since when she and Argo had last met up. She had a breastplate that only covered her left side of her chest. She still had her white scarf across her neck but her outfit mainly consisted of a shade of light green and black lines.

But what really caught Argo off guard was her top. If she could call it that anyways. It was completely black but it showed off a considerable portion of her midriff. Instead of wondering why, Argo took a more direct approach, much to Sinon's dismay. Argo poked Sinon's stomach.

"Wha, wha, what a-are you d-doing." Sinon studder as she back away.

"Just checking out Miss Sinon's legendary Midriff." Argo said as she attempted to poke it again.

"S-Stop it, you rat." Sinon said as cross her arms over her stomach.

"I have to say it was squishier than I expected." Argo said as she stopped trying to poke Sinon's stomach. "But I like seeing your ass more." Argo stated as she pulled up her menu.

"W-What was that for." Sinon asked, she was still trying to regain her composure.

"I have to find some way to pay myself." Argo said as she open up one of her notes pages. "Okay so, Archery hasn't been officially confirmed as a skill, but there is a lot of signs that point towards it being one." Argo stated. "There is a blacksmithing skill for both arrows and bows, plus there is a quest on floor 13 that gives you arrows as a reward." Argo said as she closed her Notes page.

"So it's not anything special." Sinon said half disappointed.

"No, what did you want to show me?" Argo asked.

"You already took your payment." Sinon said after reminiscing about the events that happen about half a minute ago.

"And you thought you had something that I didn't, your point?" Argo stated snarkily.

"Well I uh, I do have something that you don't." Sinon said as she opened her menu. She went through her menu until she got to Tito's message and scrolled down to the bottom. She was about to materialize the scroll but Argo stopped her with only a few words.

"I know about Tito's unique skill." Argo stated. Argo watched as Sinon smiles and hope fell. "I also know that he has a sister on floor one, and that he did security for SAO." Argo said with a smirk.

"Wha, What, how did you know that?" Sinon asked.

"I have eyes everywhere, there isn't a thing I don't know." Argo stated as she patted Sinon on the head.

Sinon pondered for a moment then came up with a fact that Argo definitely couldn't know. "What's my name in the real world?" Sinon asked.

"Oh, good question, let me get back to you on that one." Argo said as she pulled her menu then jotted something down. "Say hi to Silica for me." Argo stated as she walked away.

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So what doesn't Argo know? Trick question Argo know's everything!

Also in response to one of the reviews from last week(The only one) Kayaba's unbreakable shield I choose to make a part of his unique which he didn't have in that battle(Response was brought to you by Argo)

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter and have a great day!

-Kirk


	65. Bunch

March 9, 2023

-Sinon-

Floor one. Two thousand players died on the first floor. With that, most people would have assumed that every player would have been dead by floor five, but somehow they were on floor 15 and plan on raiding the boss room in a couple of days.

Sinon had to had it to Diavel, without him rallying all of the players together they would have never gotten that far. He had lead them through all of the boss battles and countless player deaths and still felt just as inspiring as back on floor one.

She was in the central plaza. The every place that had changed ten thousand lives in the matter of a couple of minutes. She, like many people were sent into shock. It wouldn't surprise Sinon if she wasn't the only person who didn't take out the mirror.

At the bottom of her inventory the mirror still laid there, waiting for Sinon to eventually use it or throw it away. Sinon had contemplated doing both in her time Aincrad but she just hasn't had the urge to do it. Maybe it her fear of looking the same in real life that made her never allow it to happen.

And yet somehow she wanted to see her real face again. Just once, she wanted to see herself again. If they were going to get out then what she do in the real world? How would she react to her real body. Who would she be in the real world, Shino or Sinon.

But Sinon had a request to fulfil, the question could be saved for later. Sinon opened up her map of floor one and quickly found the nearest Inn. She closed her map and quickly headed in the direction of the Inn.

XXXX  
"Um, What room is Keiko staying in?" Sinon asked the NPC standing behind the counter. Without a second of hesitation the NPC said that there was no room registered under the name Keiko.

After racking her brain for a while, Sinon finally remember the name Argo had said at the end of their last encounter. "Is there any room registered under the name Silica?" She asked. Again the NPC said no.

After thinking again she finally had probably gotten the correct name. It was so obvious that it hit her like a truck. After mentally face palming she asked the Man if there was anyone staying with the name Tito.

Without a second of hesitation he answers her question and tells her the room number he is in is seven. Though he did have annoyance in his voice as he told her this. Sinon took his answer and walked up the stairs into the second floor. She found the seventh room door the first one and only had as she walked up. SInon walked in front of the door and held her hand up and and…

Tried to attempt to knock. But she could find it in herself to knock. What she going to say if Silica didn't know that her brother had died? Could Sinon bring herself to tell her? Sinon collapsed onto the ground.

What was she going to do? What would Shino have wanted? She thought back to her life in the real world. Shino didn't much remember her father as he had died in a car accident when she was two. The memory that she was left of him was horrible yet Sinon would never forget it for the life of her.

The memory hurt her to remember but yet somehow it made her feel safe and secure. Shino believes it was of her father's last moments with her. He was bleeding to death at the time but Shino couldn't tell. He was telling her over and over again that everything would be okay. It went on like that for hours on end, that's at least what her mother said when Shino brought up the topic when she was eight.

That was the only time that she brought up her father and his death intentionally. When she brought up the subject her mother practically broke down. She knew that her mother was fragile from that experience, but she didn't know that she was that fragile.

Her mother could barely even talk much less ask Shino's impending questions. So Shino decided not to ask any questions and leave her mother in peace. If you could call peace, collapsed and on the ground cry her eyes out. Much like Sinon was at the current moment.

Though she was making little to no sound and the game amplified expressing her feelings. But even without that she had still collapsed onto the ground. Sinon was like that for a couple of minutes until she finally started to regain her composure.

Shino asked herself one question before she stood back up. If her mother had died, would she want to know? Yes, infinitely yes. She couldn't imagine waiting for someone to come but they never would. She would want to know, even though it would break her heart.

She raised her hand to knock on the door but before she did she waited a couple of seconds for her tears stop falling. After a lot more time than Sinon expected to take, she knocked on the door three times. She didn't even give herself time to contemplate how many times she should knock.

"Who is it?" Sinon heard a girl's voice ask from inside. She was obviously younger than Sinon, maybe eleven or twelve. The girl was happy and full of joyce in her voice alone, how could Sinon tell her?

Before Sinon could answer, the girl opened the door. She was smaller than Sinon had expected. Tito being a tall and more lean than anything SIlica was the opposite, well at least in height. She Had brown hair in two tails both leaving out her hand on the side, instead of on the back.

"Who are you?" The girl asked as she looked up at Sinon. This time Sinon got a full view of her face. Sinon had to admit that her face was laid out a lot like her own. She had hair to frame the sides of her face, although they were shorter than Sinon's. She also had a considerable amount of hair between her two eyes.

Once getting herself out of examining the girl's face before it got to creeper like Sinon finally started to speak. "Can I come in?" Sinon asked.

"Sure just change out of your gear and take of your shoes." The girl stated as she walked back into her inn room. Once Sinon had changed out of her gear and took of her shoes she entered the room. It was easily the most expensive and biggest inn room she had ever seen.

Sinon could've easily mistaken in for an apartment, but even her apartment in the real world was miles smaller. In fact the front room was probably bigger than her apartment. The front room housed two couches, a table, and two chairs. Sinon could also see into a small kitchen.

"Sooo, why are you here?" The girl asked, pulling Sinon out of looking around in the penthouse she was staying in.

"I'm Sinon, you're Silica, no you're Keiko right?" Sinon asked.

"Did my brother tell you my name?" SIlica asked playfully as she collapsed onto the couch.

"Um, something like that." Sinon said with a really faint voice.

"So, where is he then?" Silica asked as she raised her head of the couch. Sinon felt her feet sink into the hardwood floor she was standing on as the words escaped Silica's mouth. Could she really tell her? Yes, she know must, Sinon will not back down.

"Your brother… Died." Sinon closed her eyes as the last word left her mouth.

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Hey look it's Silica, the last chapter she was in was like chapter 20 or something but nonetheless she is finally back! If you have anything you would like to see here please send me a PM!

Anyways thank you all for Reading, Reviewing, Favoriting, and Following!

Hope you all have a great rest of your week!

Also I start school one tuesday wish me luck!

-Kirk


	66. Benefit

March 9 ,2023

-Silica and Sinon-

Sinon had her eyes closed for what felt like centuries. She had expected to her questions, lots of questions. Maybe even denial. But Sinon didn't hear anything. Not even the sound of a tear falling, the little sniff to try and stop the tear. Nothing, the room was silent. But then Sinon opened her eyes and somehow it was loud.

Silica was trying her hardest not to cry but there was still a solid streak of tears running off her face. Her mouth was left open, as if she was trying to say something but her voice escaped her. Her mouth quivered as her face fell into her hands.

"He he told that this day would…" Silica started but Sinon couldn't hear the rest of her sentence through Silica's hands and tears. Now she could hear Silica crying. Silica was balled up on the couch, her face hidden by her knees and hands.

Silica reminded Shino of a younger version of herself. Not when she was a preteen, no when she was younger, right after she asked her mother about her father. She didn't tell her anything and Shino retired to her room, leaving her mother in distress.

After entering her room Shino balled up on her bed then started to cry. Would she ever find out who her father was? Why didn't she get know? Did she do anything to deserve not knowing one of her parents? She balled up like way too many times to remember each and every one.

Sinon drove herself back into the present. Silica was still on the couch, crying her eyes out. Sinon too had tears running down her face but that didn't stop her from opening back up Tito's message. She scrolled down to the bottom and materialized the present on the letter attached to the message.

Sinon placed them on the table before she took a seat next to Silica. She raised her had to just above the girl's back and tried to start to pat her. But how could she, a random stranger pat the girl's back. She had to though, she couldn't just let this girl cry and not do anything.

Slowly, Sinon lowered her hand onto the younger girls back in an attempt to calm her down. Though she could see no obvious improvement, Sinon could feel that the girl was improving ever so slightly. She continued to rub Silica's back with her hand as she cried. Silica didn't reject Sinon practically the opposite, she wanted the comfort.

After a while of calming Silica down, she looked up to see the letter and the present sitting on the desk. "W-What is this for?" Silica asked.

"For you silly, from your brother." Sinon said, trying to keep the room absent of any bad moods.

"B-Brother?" Silica asked as she picked up the letter. She opened it without any hesitation and pulled out the long message concealed within it. Silica started to read the message as her tears fell onto the paper.

Sinon just sat beside Silica as she read her brother's letter. She couldn't see what the note said nor did she have the want to. Tito had already said his final words to her in peace, Silica should get the same treatment. But that didn't stop her from getting a quick glance at her letter.

It was at least twice the size of Sinon's and it was also hand written. The size didn't matter to Sinon, after they were siblings. Though it did confuse Sinon a little bit on why they were hand written.

She knew it show a certain aspect that typing didn't but it just seemed severely out of character. A computer geek writing out a thousand word letter to his sister when he could have just gotten a voice crystal to do it. Silica would have savored the voice but instead she had a letter.

But she could still and probably would save the writing. It just seemed a little weird to Sinon that a tech genius would write out his messages, and not use some form of technology to do it. Though he was probably the first person to use that feature inside the game.

"Thanks." Silica said with probably the smallest voice Sinon had heard in a long while.

"No need to thank me, I was just repaying my debts." Sinon stated as she turned to face the younger girl.

"Is this from him too?" Silica asked. She still had tears running down her face but she regained the composure that she had lost at the beginning.

"Yes." Sinon said as she grabbed the small present and placed it in Silica's lap. "Here you go." Sinon said cheerfully.

Silica took the present out of her lap and ripped it open. Besides for being wrapped in red wrapping paper, it had the words fragile written on the sides. As Silica opened it, Sinon could tell why Tito had taken the time to write fragile on the box. The box's contents, was a small egg.

The egg was light blue and was barely bigger than Silica's palm. Though the box said fragile, Sinon would have had to try really hard to break the egg. As she was looking at the egg couldn't help but wonder Tito had got it from. But her thought was stopped when Silica start to mess around with it.

First she poked it, then she rolled it around in her hands. Then she held it out for Sinon to hold. "Hold it, it feels weird." Silica said as she opened Sinon's closed hands and put the egg in her care.

"Okay." Sinon said, even though she already had the egg in her hands. Silica was right, it did feel weird but yet it almost didn't. Sinon guessed it would be hard and she was right but there was also something else. It was warm and furry for some reason. "You're right." Sinon laughed. "But the eggs is yours to hold." Sinon said as she put the egg back in Silica's hands.

"Thanks." Silica said as she took a hold of the egg once more. She rolled it her hands for a couple of minutes while Sinon watched her do this until a notice popped up in front of Silica. SInon couldn't read well backwards but Silica said it out loud. "Do you want hatch?" Silica stated.

"What, shouldn't that take awhile to hatch?" Sinon asked. Most eggs in the real world take a bit to hatch but whatever this was it would probably take longer. But that would all depend on when Tito got the egg.

An item drop like this would probably be rare. She hadn't heard of any item like this from Argo or word from the front lines. It would probably be a last attack bonus. She only remembered two bosses that Tito got the last strike on.

She didn't remember the names of either of the them better she remembered each well. The first one was they did alone and was a werewolf. The second one they were attacked by Kazuma's brother and the boss was a blue feathered dragon.

"Hatch it." Sinon stated.

"What, what if it attacks us?" Silica asked.

"We're in a safe zone, we'll be fine." Sinon reassured her.

"Okay." Silica said as she pressed the button. Once she pressed it, the egg started to hover above her hands. Once it was about a meter away from Silica's palms it started to crack open. They could see a tiny little blue beak peck its way through the egg shell.

After it got out, Sinon's assumption was right. It was obviously from the dragon, in fact it looked like it could be its child. The dragon was completely light blue and it was feathered. It had a small head after and long neck and a long blue tail. It's wings were bat like and it's arms were t-rex like. It also had two legs and likes it's arms they were also t-rex like.

"Woah, it's a dragon." Silica said as she held her hand out to it. The dragon pecked at her hand a bit before it landed. Then a another second appeared in front of Silica. "What would you like to name the dragon?" Silica said.

"That's up to you." Sinon said as she relaxed on the couch.

"Um… Pina." Silica stated as a single tear ran down her face.

XXXX

Pina's here!

Also Pina has a cat in the Canon named Pina and in this universe it was Tito who got her that cat. And that was literally like half my inspiration for Tito's character, for Silica to have a brother that dies and gives her Pina.

If you have any questions feel free to Pm or review

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	67. Buddy

March 9, 2023

-Silica and Sinon-

The dragon, Pina flies up to and lands on Silica's head. It gives out a slight purr before it laid its head down. Silica reached her hand up and petted the dragon while it had it's eyes closed. It was apparent to Sinon, both that Tito had gotten his sister a good gift and that the bond between Silica and Pina was instantaneous.

Sinon had never had a pet or really any friendship like what she was seeing here. The one friendship they may have been like this she had broken. But she could still probably fix it, but that was only if he would forgive him. Plus Shino wanted to do it face to face, not in game.

Sinon stood up, she was going to leave them only to bond or whatever. But before she could reach the door and re equip her shoes, Silica stopped her. "Where are you going?" Silica asked as she sprang up and out of her seat. In fact she jumped up so fast and suddenly then pina fell of her head.

Pina didn't have any trouble getting back on Silica's head but Silica was still a little distraught that she made her new pet fall. "Where are you going?" She repeated herself after she was once again standing upright with Pina on her head.

"Out, I have to train for an upcoming boss battle." Sinon said as she re equipped her shoes and gear. She made her way to the door way before Silica spoke again.

"Can you take be with you, I-I would like to help." Silica stated as she ran over Sinon. Once she stopped Pina gave out a purr that indicated that she agreed with Silica.

"Ahhh." Sinon was at a loss for words. She had been practically solo since floor two, only parting up with Tito to do the occasional hard quest. It had been starting to get harder and harder to keep enemies off her and she still need to get used to her bow. Before she could respond however, Silica cut her off.

"I can hold my own in battle, I'm level… 16." Silica started out talking really fast but stopped to check her level. "I'm not too far behind, right, and I'm a fast learner." Silica stated. She was going to continue but Sinon cut her off.

"Sure you can come, I need to practice with my bow and a second person always helps." Sinon said as she started to walk out of the Inn.

"Wait up!" Silica yelled as she stumbled out of the Inn room.

"What were you doing?" Sinon asked after a small giggle.

"I was trying to put my shoes on." Silica stated as she got her left shoe on.

XXXX  
"Woah, you said you needed to practice." Silica said as she looked back at Sinon. During the dungeon raid she hadn't missed a single shot, in fact it was like every other shot hit the enemies weak points.

"I only started shooting today." Sinon stated as she pulled back another arrow at let it go. The arrow flew through the air and into a bunniv. The bunniv instantly broke and Sinon scratched her head. "Maybe I am just lucky." Sinon said as she closed her menu.

"Lucky, LUCKY, no lucky is getting it once, not fourteen and a half times in a row!" Silica exclaimed as she threw her hands into the air. Pina who was flying a little ways above her, nodded her head in agreement.

"I never thought your pet dragon would agree with you own everything you say." Sinon stated as she walked over and pulled her arrow out of the ground. It seemed she was always out numbered when against Silica and Pina.

Nothing had gone wrong in their trip so far, thankfully. They were on floor fourteen and they were in one of the field dungeons. Sinon liked field dungeons more than regular ones. They were more open and she could avoid getting corner. Plus, the sun is a light source, so the dungeon couldn't mess with light.

Sinon looked at the younger girl a little bit in front of her. She was by no means the worst by no means the worst skilled player she had seen. But that wasn't to say she was the best either. Silica managed to frequently trip over seemingly nothing. She didn't fall but it just left her severely unbalanced.

If her unexplained trips weren't enough she sort of kiddish when she battled. She had already taken to patting Pina hold the head after they killed a monster. She did this every chance she got. Also she wasn't as focused as her brother and as a result of that monsters, typically smaller ones had an easy time sneaking up on her.

"Ahh Sinon, help me!" Silica screamed. A rat was darting around her legs. Though the rat wasn't doing any damage but it was annoying Silica none the less. This was a prefect example of how Silica was in battle. Kiddish and jumpy. It didn't help that all Pina seemed to do was fly around her.

SInon took out another arrow and put it on her bowstring. "Silica move out of the way." Sinon stated as she raised her bow. Almost on command Pina moved out of the way, but Silica took a little more time to move.

Once they were both out of the way, Sinon raised her both and pulled the arrow the arrow back to her face. After she did a couple of breaths she released the arrow at the rat. Unsurprisingly it missed, but Sinon was the only one to think this.

While both Silica and Pina(Surprisingly) were gasping and exclaiming over the fact that legendary Sinon just missed a shot, Sinon took out another arrow and without even taking another breath she left it fly.

This one hit it's target dead on and the rat exploded. "Wow nice job." Silica clapped.

"That doesn't make up for what you saying before it." Sinon said as she jogged up to Silica and retrieved her arrow.

"That's not fair." Silica said as she continued on. During the whole dungeon she had managed to be in front of Sinon, though Sinon still got most of the kills. If they weren't in a party Silica would be get the bad end of the stick.

Silica continued to lend the way and was now trying harder to kill more monsters than Sinon. She was obviously trying to make it a competition and Silica was fine with this. Well that was until she broken her dagger on a bunniv.

"Ahh!" Silica screamed as she ran back to Sinon.

"Relax, what happen?" Sinon asked after she calmed Silica and to a lesser extent Pina down.

"My dagger it broke!" Silica exclaimed. Sinon looked up at Pina and got the nod she expected.

"Hold on a second." Sinon said as she opened her menu. She scrolled through her menu until she got to her knives. Being careful not to pick out her shadow strike, she materialized a knife a handed it to Silica. "Here you go." Sinon said with a smile.

"What, I can't accept this, I'll go buy one." Silica said as tried to walk off.

"You can and you will accept this." Sinon said as she gave the dagger to Silica and enclosed her hands over it. She was going to like having Silica as a friend. She may not be the strongest but she was a breath a fresh air.

XXXX

I have to say this was a fun chapter to write. It was basically the first chapter with not sad interactions between Silica and Sinon not to mention the first chapter with Silica and Pina.

But this chapter also marks one more thing, the cover image changing! And no I do not own this image but there is literally nothing else with Coper

Thank you to everyone who has Liked, Commented and Subscribed!

Have a wonderful week!

-Kirk


	68. Bolster

March 13, 2023

-Zack-

Zack looked up at his in game clock. 8:32. Zack sighed. He had been spending the last couple of hours trying to get drunk off of beer that can't get you drunk. Yep, he could say it now, his life was shit. Or his virtual life for that matter.

"Hit me with anoother one." Zack said after he finished his last glass. He could say without a doubt that this was the worst beer that he had ever tasted but yet again it was fifty col so who was he to complain.

He picked up the glass and down the liquid without even tasting a single bit. Zack set the glass back on the table then ran his hair through his already disheveled hair. It was going to be a long couple of years. Not longer than his life in real world would be.

His legs were shaking uncontrollably. If the stool that he was sitting on was unbalanced then he would causing a ruckus that would kick him out of the bar. But to Zack's liking his stool and all four stool firmly on the ground.

"Hit me up with anoother one." Zack said exhausted. Most people would tell him to go to bed, get some rest. But why would he got to bed early on saint patty's day? Though it seems that absolutely no one was celebrating it, and even Kayaba didn't have specially boss or something.

Though yet again Zack didn't know of any other bosses spawning in on holidays. But Zack wasn't one to know anything. He didn't participate in any of the front line activities though his level could potentially be in the front lines.

"Hit me up with anoother one." Zack said after he downed the liquid in one go.

"Don't." He heard a girl said as she sat down next to him. Zack looked over to see if he recognized her but he didn't. The girl was in a long green dress and had brown hair that went down her back.

"Go away." Zack said as he turned his attention away from her. He really didn't like people in the real world, the virtual one was no different for him.

"I've been looking for you." She stated. She wasn't leaving Zack alone. Zack knew this so he simply stood up and moved to a different spot in the bar. "I'm here to help." She stated once she again sat down next to him.

"Did he send yoou?" Zack asked. If he sent he would be mad but he would probably listen. If he didn't then he was going to find another bar to drink at.

"No, but I'm here to help." She once again repeated herself.

"I don't n-need yoour help." Zack stated as he stood up and attempted to make his way towards the door. Like many other players he entered the game to run away from his life and his problems. He ended up making many other problems in the process. His walk didn't get very far as his arm was grabbed just seconds after standing up.

Once she grabbed his arm she realized that his whole entire body was shaking. "No, your wrong, you may not want my help but you need it." She stated she pulled him back on his stool. Zack tried to get up again but her arm stopped him. He wasn't going anywhere soon.

"My name's Ran." Ran said as she extend her arm out to Zack.

"I'm Zack." Zack said as he shook her hand.

"So Zack, I wanted to ask you a question if it's alright with you, Why aren't you fighting on the front lines?" Ran asked. She had seen his kill first hand, and he had more than enough skill to be a clearer. Heck, he even successfully beat two of the strongest clearers and challenge everyone else.

"I doon't want to." Zack stated as he start to shake again.

"You don't want too, you mean to tell me that you don't want to get out of the game?" Ran asked. Out of all of the players that she had met, they all wanted out of SAO. That included her, even with how bad her life was in the real world, she just wanted to get back to her sister.

"Well yoou just met one." Zack said as he rested his head on the table. "Hit me up." He said without even raising his head. He felt the cool glass enter his hand then he raised his head back up to take a drink. But his lips didn't even get to touch the glass.

"Stop it!" Ran said as she knocked his arm back down. "I'm not going to watch another person lose themselves!" She yelled at Zack after the glass hit the table with a loud thud. Zack paid her no head and attempted to drink his drink.

He was stopped again but this time he cracked. "JUST GO AWAY!" Zack yelled at her.

"No, I won't let drink yourself away." Ran said as she pinned his arms to the bar without much effort.

"Why shoould yoou care, I'm just soome useless spear user." Zack said as he banged his head against the bar. "Why did it have to be him that live?" He asked himself under his breath so Ran wouldn't hear.

"No you get up." Ran said as she tried to pick up Zack's head. It was as though his entire body went limp, which it probably did. Ran was have an increasingly hard time trying to move him. "Get up, you have more to live for than getting drunk at a bar." Rans stated.

"It's better than what I woould be dooing in real life." Zack said without raising his head.

"Shut up, how about this, I'll pay for your tab in turn for a duel with you." Ran said as she sat back down on her stool.

Zack thought this over for a little bit. One hand he knew he would lose the duel. He had no reason to fight her. On the other hand he had been drinking all day so his tab was pretty high. "Sure, but be prepared to beat me." Zack stated as he stood up,

"Why?" Ran asked.

"Because i have no reason to fight you." Zack answered as he walked out of the bar. Ran quickly paid for Zack's tab and then went outside. She was surprised to find that Zack had not ran as she would have thought he did. Ran sent him a duel request and he accepted.

"Don't take it easy on me since I'm a girl." Ran said as she got into her defensive stance. Zack chuckled a bit before he assumed his stance. Once the countdown timer hit zero, Zack started to twirl his spear.

Ran noticed it wasn't as proficiently as she had last seen but it was still pretty impressive. She ran at him and unleashed a horizontal but he deflected it with ease. Ran immediately retracted her sword to block the attack that she knew would come.

But it didn't come instead Zack jumped back and waited for her next attack. She ran at him again and this time unleashed a vertical at him. Zack stopped twirling his spear and and side stepped to the right to avoid her attack.

Then he swung a horizontal at her. Ran duck underneath and was greeted by Zack's foot. It had almost connect to her face but she jumped up and it skinned her leg. On her way down she unleashed a vertical that caught Zack in his shoulder. This brought him all the way down to half and gave her the win.

"Told you." Zack said as he took Ran's spear out of his shoulder. "Thanks for saving me a couple thousand col." Zack said as he turned around and walked away.

"Hey where are you going?" Ran asked.

"A man has got to sleep sometime!" Zack shouted without even turning around.

XXXX  
Remember him, it sure has been way to long since he has been in the picture

If you have any guesses on Zack's past I would like to hear them, He actually has a semi complicated past

Thanks to all who have Followed Favorited And Reviewed.

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	69. Bonus

March 15, 2023

-Asuna, Diavel, Heathcliff, Lind, Klein, Ran, Zack, Saffi, Tsubaki, Kazuma-

"What are you doing here?" Kazuma asked as he walked over to Zack.

"I am here to help out." Zack said as he rubbed his hands together

"Did you forget what you did, you attacked us, they won't forgive you" Kazuma stated coldly.

"That does not matter, I was invited by one of the people I attacked, and I'm a green player now."

"It doesn't change the fact that you attacked us!" Kazuma exclaimed as he moved his face closer to his brother's. "Who invited you?" He asked.

"I did." Ran said as she walked over to the feuding brothers. "He has the talent to change this world, I won't let him sit in the shadows." Ran stated.

"You think he has talent, he's a killer, and nothing will change that." Kazuma stated to Ran. Zack's face quivered as he heard this. Could he do this? Would he crack?

"He has talent, I saw it first hand when he dueled you." Ran stated. "I don't care what he was, all that matters is what he is now." Ran said as she looked over to Zack and nodded.

"That's because you don't know what he was, and I don't think he'll ever tell you what he did and what he was." Kazuma stated as he walked away. He had has head held high as he walked away. It looked as though the conversation hadn't even phased him.

"Thank you." Zack stated to Ran

"Just doing what I felt was right." Ran said back. "Why he does going to hate you?" Ran asked after wavering over whether or not to ask him.

"He will hate be for as long as he wants but he get over once he realizes that it isn't helping him." Zack said as he took his spear out of his inventory and looked at the end. It was sharp, Could he do something in this battle? Would he break?

"What happened between you two?" Ran asked with a small voice. Maybe he heard maybe he didn't, it didn't matter to Ran. She had regretted asking it as soon as the words left her mouth.

Though he heard this Zack didn't respond. He didn't want to explain the past nor did he want anyone to know it. He looked around to see the boss room door open. Apparently he just missed one of the legendary Diavel speeches but he didn't really care all too much about it.

They all walked into the boss room and looked around. From what Ran had told him the boss was relatively simple and that Tsubaki didn't sense that it's change at low health would be much of anything. Who Tsubaki is, Zack didn't know but he trusted Ran and from what it sounded like she trusted Tsubaki.

The boss was a giant shell about the size of a baseball field. It exterior was a giant shell. Due to this it's speed was very lackluster but was far superior than any other boss they had seen so far.

The bosses names was Shelled One and it fit pretty well. During their whole entire scouting mission the shell was never broken nor did something ever emerge from the shell. The attacks that came were weird in their own right.

It would roll around, albeit kind of slow but it would roll around smashing its targets. It wasn't a one hit kill be it wasn't harmless either. It got Diavel down to half in one hit. It could also Spin itself vertically and damage anyone who attacked it. In this mode it's movement was severely limited but it was nearly impossible to deliver a melee attack one it.

Apparently during the scout mission they had managed to juggle it's aggro between both Diavel and Heathcliff. They had gone about a minute without the boss being able to land a hit. But Zack doubted that they would be able to recreate that with a larger attack force.

Zack watched as everyone got into their positions. They all seemed to have memorized what they were doing and they all had perfected it. Zack felt sorely out of place, what was he doing with professionals when he could barely get out of bed in the morning?

"You'll be okay." Ran stated as she patted him on the back.

"Thanks." Zack stated as he readied his spear. He could do this. He would do this. He barely heard the command for his squad to attack but he heard it and obliqued.

Their attack was successful, if successful meant that no one got hurt. But the damage that they did was little at best. If their attack was an omen for things to come, they would be there for a while. And it was.

The boss's defense was practically impregnable. All of their attacks were either bouncing off or did nothing. And it's attacks against them, though the attacks weren't really dangerous, they were annoying was all hell.

All of the shield users were guarding the attacks properly but at the rate it's attacks were hitting most of the shield users were extremely tired. All but two shield user were running away to catch their breath.

One of shield users Zack knew relatively well, as well as most of Aincrad. DIavel was still holding off the giant clam. The other one Zack didn't really know all that well but he looked like a shield user. Tall and beefy he could tell the man could take a hit even with his shield to back him up. He was in red and black armor and had grey hair.

"Zack, can you get a spear between the two shells?" Ran said as she ran over to Zack.

"I can try, are we going to break this thing open?" Zack asked as he readied his spear.

"At the rate we're going, we're going to have casualties soon. " Ran stated.

"I'll take that as a yes." Zack said as he looked up at giant calm. "Just you add me, buddy." Zack said as he ran at the clam. Once he thought he had gotten close enough, he used his sonic leap to propel him faster at the boss. He could not be slow, for if he was slow, he would be caught.

Once he was within arms distance away from the clam he charged up his spear and let it go straight at the clam without a spot of hesitation. It hit in between to two shells but got stuck. Instead of trying to pull it out Zack simply backed off and ran back to Ran.

"I did something." Zack stated as he got to her.

"We need to push it in farther." Ran stated. Without even a second passing by the girl next to Ran opened up her menu and materialized a shield.

"Got it." Tsubaki said as she ran at the boss.

"That's a really good shield." Zack stated as he examined the shield that the girl had just taken out.

"And apparently Tsubaki got it for cheap." Ran stated as she scratched her head. "I don't how she managed to get it for cheap." Ran said while thinking about for a little while longer.

Zack looked back up to see that Tsubaki was nearly at his spear. She had done an excellent job at avoiding the other players and not drawing the aggro. Once she got to Zack's spear, she hit it with her shield and it went inside the boss.

The boss stopped moving for a couple of seconds and almost every player ran at the attacked the shell relentlessly. But then the shell popped up and everyone looked inside. Inside the shell there was a pearl.

The pearl rolled out of the clam's mouth and onto the sandy floor below it. The pearl rested in the sand as the clam's mouth fell all the way to the ground. The pearl looked to be very expensive, at least in Zack's eyes.

Zack was never one to mess around in that territory. If he was asked to guess the price of a ring he would be at least a couple thousand off, if not more. Zack never wore jewelry or anything of the sort. The closest he got to ever delving into the area is when he got his mother a necklace for mother's day.

This held Zack back from going over and touching the pearl. He had really no want or need for the pearl and thus he didn't go over and examine it. Zack was way more interested in the boss, as it had not yet despawned.

Though this was his second boss battle he knew that like all other monsters, boss will break into shards after it dies. After Zack pulled another spear out of his inventory, he walked over to the broken clam. He poked it with his spear once he got within distance of it. The boss didn't react in any way and this left Zack in his thoughts.

But he was taken back into the world of the living when he heard people shouting. Someone had touched the pearl and the clam started to move again. The shells reconnected with each other started to again attack the players.

Zack jumped back before he could get hit and he stopped to think. "Hey Ran, is it possible that we have to destroy the pearl?" Zack asked once he was a safe distance from the boss but close enough so Ran would hear him.

"Let's find out." Ran said as she readied her sword and charged at the inanimate pearl. Her sword slide straight through the pearl with ease and the pearl shattered up into millions of blue shards. With that the boss froze then exploded into blue shards to join it's pearl.

Zack looked up to see the congratulation banner appear. He remembered the first time he saw it. He was running away from them, he used the shattered boss as a distraction and got away. But this time he felt like he earned the banner even if he didn't do much of anything.

"Nice job." Ran said as she walked back over to him.

"What are you talking about, you got the last hit." Zack stated.

"Not that, you realized something I didn't, not everyone can say they have done that." Ran stated as she smiled at Zack.

XXXX

Okay so let's get something out of the way first…. 69

But that's not all this end section is for I do want to tell you all something. MY OC's are mainly here to fill the time gaps in Kirito's and the rest of the Canon characters arc's, since you know there are a lot of them and thus I have quite a few OC. Though all of them still have something to do with Kirito's Arc!

Don't forget to Like Comment and Subscribe!

Have a great week

-Kirk


	70. Mild

March 16, 2023

-Sinon and Silica-

Seven days, one week since Silica's brother had died. Silica feel as though she was wasn't missing anything, though she knew that she was. Maybe it was the fact that she and he brother were never close.  
In fact she never remembered him unless he came home for the holidays or something. Which happen maybe once or twice. The fact was by the time she was four, he was already out of the house. Silica had no memories of him playing with her or even him talking to her. The time she saw him was when he ate dinner with their family.

Silica couldn't blame him however, he wasn't to blame, at least in Silica's eyes. What was to blame was their age difference. She was ten years younger than him. By the time she was born, he was already in high school. And if high school was anything like her parents said it was, then she really couldn't blame him.

Pina flew back onto Silica's head. She stretched her hand up to pet Pina. The little dragon purred as Silica scratched her head. The only thing she had to remember her brother in both worlds. A pet, Pina. A living animal to fill the hole that her brother had left.

"Silica." Sinon called out.

"Yeah!" Silica said as she was pulled out of her thoughts. She was slightly confused but she wouldn't show it. She looked around to see that Sinon was quite aways in front of her.

"The monsters are this way." Sinon stated as she walked on.

"Sorry!" Silica said as she started to jog to catch up to Sinon. "How long was I standing there?" Silica asked once she caught up to Sinon.

"Enough for me to get in front of you." Sinon stated as she took her bow off her back. She raised her bow up and used her free hand to pull out an arrow out of her quiver. She put the bow on her bow string and pulled back.

Sinon held her loaded bow up steady as Silica ran in front of her. Silica knew that Sinon had only a finite number of arrows. Sinon usually just made it so Silica had no monsters sneaking up on her. She maybe shot once each pack of enemies.

Silica had a feeling that it wasn't her small supply of arrows that kept her from shooting frequently, it was probably something else. She was probably letting Silica get the kills so she could level faster. Silica was fine with this, since she was at least five or so levels behind Sinon.

During her time when she was supposedly on floor one she wasn't. Silica went up to the higher floors, though she made sure not to go up to the newest floor and she leveled by herself. Though it wasn't the most effective way of grinding, she did gain a fair amount of levels. She was level fourteen by the time she had partied up with Sinon.

Silica took out her knife and ran ahead into the couple of monsters in front them. The monsters weren't to difficult but if the was a couple more in the frea then Silica would really have a hard time. Silica easily took out the three bunniv's in the path, then gave Pina a high five, which Pina used her head for.

She looked back to that Sinon was readying another arrow on to her bow. Silica didn't even see where Sinon's last arrow had went. Sinon's talent surprised Silica, though to be fair Silica hadn't really seen anybody else's skill except for her's and Sinon's. And needless to say, but Silica's skill was miles behind.

They continued walking ahead, with Silica in front of Sinon now. This was their usual formation, Silica and Pina in front and Sinon in the back with an arrow ready. Though Silica would much rather hide behind a couple of shield user's, she was already with their current agreement.

Everything was going alright, Silica would take out a couple of bunniv's at a time while Sinon would shoot once or twice before hand to make the number of bunniv's a little more manageable. That was until they came across a strong bunniv. That's when the real challenge begins.

"We need to kill that one for the quest." Sinon stated as she let an arrow fly into the overly large bunniv.

"What that thing, it has a club in it's tail that's the size of me!" Silica exclaimed.

"Yeah, and the quest reward is worth more than you." Sinon said as she pulled out another arrow out of her quiver.

"That's rude." Silica said quietly so that Sinon couldn't hear her. Pina nodded in agreement. Silica took her knife out and readied herself. Then she ran at the overly large bunniv.

Bunniv's were basically bunnies with overly large tails. Despit in Silica's opinion they had less cute face's than regular bunnies, they still were basically carbon copies of real life bunnies. The end of their tail usually wrapped itself around a stick or something of that size.

But this bunniv had an overly large club with spikes held up by it's tail. The club was at least as long as Silica but it's width is was much more than Silica's. It could easily knock Silica off her feet in one hit, and Silica knew this. And she hated it.

Silica's run could barely be called one as it was more of a confused jog. It was a step up from her usual walking pace but more irregular. It was as if she didn't know if she wanted to run or not. Sinon noticed this fact and brought her bow down.

Silica jogged at the bunniv until she got close enough to strike it. She charged up a sword skill and attempted to hit but she was hit first. The bunniv's club slammed right into her side and flung her away. She landed on the ground a few meters in front of Sinon.

"What is that thing." Silica asked rhetorically as she stood back up.

Ignoring her question, Sinon ran up to Silica with her bow across her back. "You're going to take this thing down." Sinon stated once she got to Silica.

"What, No, Why." Silica said abruptly and surprised.

"Because you can and you will." SInon stated as she took out a heal crystal and healed Silica. "Just believe in yourself and what you're fighting for." Sinon stated.

"O-Okay." Silica said hesitating. She readied her dagger then ran at the overly large fake bunny. Though her run wasn't as confident as it could nor what Sinon wanted to see, it was still leaps and bounds ahead of her last run at the bunniv.

Once she reached the bunniv she prepared the same sword skill that she had prepared last time. It connected with the side of the bunniv but that wasn't the only that connected. Again the bunniv's club slammed again her side and again flung her in front Sinon.

"You okay?" SInon asked as she extend her arm to Silica.

"Yeah." Silica said as she stood back up with Sinon's assistance.

"You have to calm yourself, just think of why you are fighting and let that empower you." Sinon said as she took her bow off her back and loaded an arrow on to it. She pulled back the string until it was almost touching her cheek. Sinon let out one large breath before she let go of the string. The arrow found it's mark in the bunniv's tail.

"Now take this opportunity and run with it." Sinon said as she gave Silica a push towards the bunniv.

Once she regained her balance, Silica readied her dagger and breathed slowly but before she ran at the bunniv she saw something. Pina. A smile crossed Silica's face as she prepared a sword skill and ran at the bunniv.

This attack was nothing like she had felt before. Though the club did graze her side, the attack was nothing but successful. Her dagger slid into the bunniv's head easily as she attacked. This made the bunniv explode into millions of blue shards and a pop-up appeared before Silica.

The first one was just the drops but then next one was more important. She had just gained another skill, beast tamer.

"What's this?" Silica asked as she showed it to Sinon. Sinon looked at it curiously but dropped the first thought that invaded her head. It wasn't a unique skill but it was still interesting.

"It looks like Pina going to be useful." Sinon stated as she patted Silica on the head.

XXXX

A Now She's a Dragon Tamer!

We Will Never Forget

Please tell me if you want more Silica chapters! She is not the most plot important character but I would love to write of her if you guys want me to!

Have an an amazing day doing whatever you are and have a wonderful week

-Kirk


	71. Manager

March 19, 2023

-Asuna, Diavel, Lind, Klein, Ran, Zack, Saffi, Tsubaki-

"Hello, thank you all for coming to our information meeting." Diavel said as he stood up and walked to the front of the room. The room that they were in was rectangular with a bunch a folding seats in it. At the front of the room was a stage of sorts.

The stage was a little more than a couple of centimeters above the rest of the room. But besides that there wasn't much else. There was a movable podium that Diavel placed and had red drapes that covered the windows in the back. Asuna could see it being some type of performance stage, but she hadn't ever seen one so small.

"This boss is different than the last one's we have faced." Diavel started. "The boss is about a three story tall Minotaur with three bars of health and not much defense." Diavel stated. Most people were happy, though some of them suspected that the boss packed something else. Most of the other bosses had more than three health bars, so that means this has to make it up somewhere.

"But this boss has amazing speed and power, in fact I had trouble blocking its hits and even when I did they knocked me far back." Diavel stated. "After consulting both Tsubaki and Ran we agreed that it would be best if the shield users didn't participate in this floor boss." Diavel stated.

To Asuna's Memory this was the first time that one of Diavel's ideas wasn't met with open arms. Most of the people in the room were either silent or going crazy at Diavel. They were screaming and yelling that he was crazy and that they should recall him. But Diavel didn't say anything.

In fact his face didn't change at all. It was clear to Asuna that Diavel had no intent on on calming them down at the moment. But was also it was clear to Asuna that they weren't going to stop any time soon. And she was going to help him.

Asuna stood up and walked over to the podium without even a second of hesitation. After kicking Diavel off his podium everyone stopped stopped talking for a moment. After giving herself a mental high five she spoke up. But then they continued making their ruckus

"Quiet down all you!" Asuna yelled over them. "Anyone who doesn't want to hear the rest of what Diavel has to say can leave, right now." Asuna added on the last words for emphasis. She walked off the small stage and left it for Diavel to take.

After silently thanking Asuna, Diavel retook his podium and started to speak. "Now, the boss has a nasty combined combo of high attack and agility plus incredible knockback. When his blade connects with any part of your armor, even a shield, you get knocked off your feet, trust me I know." Diavel stated with a little bit of added humor at the end.

"Well how are we supposed to beat it then?" One of the Dragons members asked.

"The plan is to dodge the boss's attacks, and shield users aren't built for constant movement, which is what we plan on doing." Diavel stated in response to the player. "So, without further ado, I am passing the torch over to Asuna, she is in charge of this raid." Diavel said as he grinned at Asuna.

But this was met with mixed responses from the players. While most of the player were quiet there were some that weren't. They were calling her beater and threatening leaving the meeting.

"Quiet all of you, I am the head of the front lines and I believe that she is more suited to lead this battle." Diavel stated but it didn't stop a select few of the players. "She was chosen since she has the highest agility I have seen in the game, if you think you have higher than you can race against her." Diavel stated and with that the players quieted down.

"Thank you." Asuna said once she got to the podium. "The plan is to run around and basically don't get hit while attacking the boss." Asuna stated. "Keep in mind your surroundings and if you get tired then get as far as away as possible, got it!" Asuna said.

Some of the players clapped, which is more than she could have asked for, but it was lackluster compared to Diavel's usual applause. "Okay everyone let's get going!" Asuna shouted as she walked of the podium. She was stopped by Diavel before she got to the door.

"Do you want me to come?" Diavel asked Asuna.

"No thanks, I got this under control." Asuna said as she turned to the door.

"Don't let anyone die." Diavel shouted.

"I'll sacrifice myself before I let someone else die." Asuna stated as she walked through the door.

XXXX

Their plan was sound enough. Though the boss had excellent attack power and agility the boss's attacks had a start up time which most of the players had become acquainted with. The start up time was just enough that they could dodge most attacks successfully, but the boss had a few aces up its sleeve.

One or two of it's attacks had near no start up time and were very capable at even blind sighting Asuna. Plus it had counter attacks when they got close. So basically whenever the went into attack, it would launch large horizontals that were near impossible to avoid. Luckily they didn't do too much damage.

Asuna looked back at the players that were tired out or injured. Seven. One had been a little to slow and had gotten hit by the boss's attacks. Two got hit by the boss's counter attack. Another two were flung across the room by the wickedly fast attacks, and the last two seemed to have taken Asuna's advice. The two players were both from the Army, Asuna figured as much.

Asuna gripped her sword harder and started to run at the boss. It had only been a couple of moments since her last attack at the boss. She ran up to the boss, sliding underneath it's horizontal and unleashed her four hit linear sword skill. It took the boss down enough for Asuna to feel accomplished, and with that she jumped back.

The other players that were attacking the boss in a similar manner. They were jumping in to do damage then jumping out to evade it. There was one exception however, the player who had the aggro.

That player had the fun job of not getting hit. Whoever it was basically gets to run around until the boss changes it's aggro. The boss did this frequently enough and only to army members had been worn out by it. Asuna had personally had gotten the aggro twice.

She looked up to see what the boss was at, halfway into its last health bar. From what it seemed the boss didn't trigger anything when entering it's last health bar besides the lightning fast attacks it had gotten.

Asuna ran at the boss again. If the boss was halfway through it's last health bar then it wouldn't be long until the boss exploded. Her attack this time didn't trigger a counter attack, so she was able to freely get off a couple her linears before backing away.

But that was her last attack, once she was safely away from the boss, the boss exploded into millions of blue shards. After briefly looking at the congrats banner she looked around at the other players.

Most of them were exhausted and did a pretty good job of showing it. Asuna was also exhausted but she didn't show it. She continued to look around until she found a player that was past out on the ground.

"Are you okay!" Asuna asked once she got closed enough to the player.

"That… Was.. Terrible… I hate this game." The player said. The player was a middle aged man with black hair. He still had his eyes closed but Asuna knew that he was just relaxing. She looked over him more until she noticed that his left arm was missing.

"Here's a health potion, now come on, I'll help you out." Asuna said after she tossed a health potion to the man and extend her hand. The man took hand and hoisted himself up.

"Thanks." The player said after he drank the health potion.

"No, thank you for helping me in this boss battle." Asuna stated. The player didn't give a response other than a small grin before he walked away. She looked around. There were no deaths in that battle and everything went according to plan. Asuna was proud of herself.

XXXX  
Believe it or not Asuna gets an arc that really doesn't have to do with Kirito and that was one of the things I wanted to do with her. I wanted her to be in 'love' with Kirito but that not be her only defining factor.

If you have any questions or concerns feel free to tell me, I would like to know!

Thank you all to all who have Favorited, Followed, and Reviewed!

See you next Sunday!

-Kirk


	72. Meet

March 21, 2023

-Kirito and Argo-

"What did you want Argo?" Kirito asked as he approached Argo. They were on floor five, as request by Kirito. Argo had messaged him that she needed to talk to him. After argueing and a little bit of blackmail Kirito agreed and asked to meet on a lower floor.

He knew that Argo knew the reason that they were meeting on floor five even if he didn't say it out loud. They knew each other inside and out, but neither of them would say it out loud. They had only know each other since the beta but in a game that you can die at any moment, they had grown to know each other faster than they could imagine.

"What's with the hostility, I thought we were friends." Argo said as she sat down at the bench she had been standing at for the last couple minutes. "Come on Kirito, you can't be rude to your friends." Argo stated as she leaned her head back.

"Friend… How many quests are on floor seventeen?" Kirito asked Argo.

"That will cost you one thousand col." Argo stated robotically but then giggled after few seconds after she stopped talking.

"Point Kirito, What did you want?" Kirito said as he sat down next to thing he knew about Argo even before the offical launch was that she didn't meet up with you just to meet up with you. She always had a plan or needed something done.

"I'm just coming to talk to my investment." Argo stated as she turn her face to in Kirito's direction.

"It's the other way around, if I die then you get to keep the item and all the money I have given to you." Kirito stated.

"I'm not talking about that deal, there's another one." Argo stated. Kirito thought for a couple of seconds before he realized that he only had on deal with Argo at the moment.

"Who's deal?" Kirito asked. He already had a good idea but he wanted to know for sure. Kirito opened up his menu, he was for sure going to forfeit a couple hundred col for his question.

"No need for that, she wants you to know, it was Asuna." Argo stated as she opened up her menu. She checked off something on in her notes then turned back to Kirito. "She's furious with you but if you return now she will forgive for everything." Argo stated to Kirito's face. She saw his face change unsteadily, he didn't want to be reminded of it. Kirito stood up.

"You going to break the bridge between you and your first friend." Argo stated as she grabbed Kirito's arm and attempt to pull him back on to the bench. He just shrugged her off but he didn't walk away.

"Tell her I'm sorry." Kirito said without turning his face to towards Argo. He looked off into the distance, it was amazing how everything was so detailed yet it was all made up. Nothing was real it was all reality.

"She won't accept your apology unless you tell it to her face to face." Argo stated.

"Then she won't get one." Kirito stated coldly. He tried to walk away but Argo ran in front of him.

"She won't ever forgive you if you do this, she'll hate you, you'll lose your first friend." Argo said as she stopped him. Kirito stayed motionless and emotionless from what Argo could tell. "Why are you doing this!" Argo asked.

"That… I have to beat this game." Kirito stated after revising his original statement. His original statement was too Argo like for Kirito, and would pretty much serve as teasing device.

"You can't beat this game by yourself." Argo stated. It may have been or may have not been, Argo didn't know. But she knew that Kirito was going to strain himself and that couldn't end well. "You need someone tell help you, make friends, Kirito you can't go on grinding for eighteen hours a day just to do it again the next day, it's unhealthy." Argo stated.

Argo had taken it upon herself to check up on Kirito. Though they almost never met up unless he was paying off his debt, Argo kept checking in on Kirito. Argo knew that she was one of the few people still friends with Kirito, and she check her map every so often to make sure wasn't doing something too stupid.

"Kirito, why won't you let her be in a party with you?" Argo asked. No matter how she knew Kirito she couldn't simply figure out why he had done what he had done. She couldn't see his face but she knew that he wasn't exactly having the time of his life. Argo thought about taking back he question but she decided against it. This is what's best for Kirito.

"I will beat this game." Kirito stated coldly. He intended on doing as he said. Kirito wasn't going to back down from the challenge that had been assigned to him.

"Why don't you let her help you out, she's one of the strongest players in the game." Argo stated. The last part probably didn't mean anything to Kirito, as he already knew it, but Argo said it anyways.

"I can't let anyone else risk their lives for me." Kirito stated. "I will beat this game, and that's a promise." Kirito said as he started to walk off. Argo ran after she still wasn't done.

"You're going to kill yourself." Argo said once she reached Kirito.

Kirito sighed. He knew what Argo was saying could come true but he also had other fears. "Is that all you wanted?" Kirito asked. He wanted to get away from the conversation that he was having. The conversation wasn't exactly his cup of tea.

"Yes I have a question for you." Argo stated.

"You know that's going to cost you." Kirito chuckled.

"I'll take five thousand col off your payment." Argo stated. "You remember after the beta you and Coper met up in the real world to make something?" Argo asked.

"How do you know that?" Kirito said. He didn't remember telling Argo about his and Coper's little experiment.

"Coper told me, anyways who was it for?" Argo asked.

"That's a little personal." Kirito said, trying not to answer Argo's question.

"And that's why it's five thousand not one thousand." Argo said. She knew that Kirito would tell her easily, all she had to do was reason with him a little bit.

"Shino Asada, is that all?" Kirito asked.

"Yeah, your bill is now at ninety five thousand." Argo stated, she was going to love watching Kirito trying to pay to get his item back.

XXXX

Soooo, If you were wondering what Kirito was doing he was grinding day and day out

Also what do you think Argo is talking about at the end? I would really like to know!

Well that's about it from this one, Thank you all who have spent the little time to read this Fan-Fic

Have a wonderful day

-Kirk


	73. Merry

March 23, 2023

-Asuna, Sinon, Kibaou, Diavel, Heathcliff, Lind, Klein, Ran, Zack, Saffi, Tsubaki, Kazuma-

"You're finally back." Saffi said Sinon as she walked up to her. Ever since she had been partied with Silica, Sinon had taken a break from the front lines. It had been since floor fourteen or fifteen since she had fought a floor boss.

"What have I missed?" Sinon asked once Saffi was not standing next to here.

"Not much of anything, in fact this floor boss is supposed to be a lot harder than the last couple." Saffi stated. Saffi wasn't able to attend the scouting mission, since she had other things to do.

Sinon towards the floor boss door. She and Saffi were in the way back like usual, since they were both long range support. SInon looked around to see who she could recognize. The closest people that she recognized was Ran and a man in his late teens.

They were closest to her, being that at least Ran was supposed to observe the boss and come up with more counter measures. Sinon thought this was a little redundant, but She knew why Diavel was being overly cautious. Sinon looked closer at the player she was talking to then it hit her, she and seen him before.

Was it Yuuma, no it was Zack. He had attacked them during floor boss eight, if Sinon could remember right. His cursor was green this time but Sinon remembered that he attacked them with frightening skill. He beaten both Kirito and Kazuma back to back and even knocked her dagger out of the air.

But here he looked a lot more relaxed and reserved. Sinon decided that she wouldn't ask any questions but that didn't mean that she trusts Zack or Yuuma. She would still stay away from him if she could.

Standing next to them but not talking was Tsubaki. She was looking up at the ceiling and Sinon decided to also look up. The ceiling had patterns in it, the ceiling was neoclassical it had tiles that had intricate patterns in them. Sinon looked back to Tsubaki and she was still looking at the ceiling.

Asuna was a lot closer to the front and she was talking to Kazuma. Sinon looked around to see if she could find Kirito, but he wasn't there. She opened up her menu to see where Kirito's was at. He was on this floor but he wasn't with the clearers, he was off in a dungeon.

Sinon closed her menu but before she could continue looking around to see what had changed since her last time at the front lines, Diavel started his speech. Sinon looked over at Diavel when he started to speak. His sword was already raised above his head like he usually did before starting his short speech.

"I have one thing to say, Let's do this!" Diavel shouted. After saying this Diavel lowered his sword a little bit but it still managed to have the end above his head, he pushed opened the boss room door.

Sinon watched all of players walk hesitantly into the boss room. It was the same way each time they took on a boss. Most of the players feared death, so it was understandable that they weren't exactly jumping for joy.

There were a few exceptions to this. All of the guild leaders never hesitated, if they did then their subordinates would probably hesitate even more than they already did. A couple of the other players didn't hesitate, the majority of those players being people that went on scouting missions.

Sinon and Saffi were the last players to walk into the boss room. The boss room was, well very dark. Sinon knew that it would be hard to hit her mark with the darkness surrounding her. Maybe she would put points into night vision.

Despite the fact that she couldn't really see all that well, Sinon could make out what she thought was the boss room's theme. From what the ground felt like, she was walking on dirt and crumpled leaves. The walls were completely black or at least dark enough that she couldn't see them. But then she stepped on a slab of stone.

"Saffi, is the boss a zombie?" Sinon asked.

"Yeah, did you not go to the information meeting?" Saffi asked. She had sneaking suspicion that Sinon didn't go from how much she had been looking around, but she couldn't be sure. To be fair, she didn't go to either.

"No, do you know this boss's gimmick?" Sinon asked. Most of the bosses who had themed rooms had an ace or few. These aspects of the bosses completely changed how they were fought.

"Well the boss is a zombie giant and like most zombies it doesn't feel pain." Saffi stated.

"So we can't stop a boss's attack with long range." Sinon stated. She wasn't sure if it was correct or not, but that's the only connection she could make.

"And it's aggro isn't damaged based." Saffi added on.

"So then why are we here?" Sinon asked. She was more or less asking Saffi, as she knew why she came. Though didn't mean that she didn't feel stupid for coming.

"I have nothing better to do, and well you missed the info meeting." Saffi said to Sinon. "You could spend time examining things if you would like, but it is a little dark in here." Saffi said as she opened up her menu.

She went to the section that she liked to call her extraneous fun section. This was littered with random things that she bought in the NPC store's other section. She hadn't materialized most of them twice yet alone once. In the real world she had collected interesting toys and collectables.

But in the virtual world the items really had no category other than other. They ranged from her metal plated ball to sun glasses. Unlike the items she collected in the real world, she pick these with purpose in mind. Even if the purpose is only to look cool.

Saffi took out one of the balls she had collected and closed her menu. She looked over at Sinon, who was astounded that she just took out a ball in boss raid. "What, you want one too?" Saffi humored Sinon.

"No thanks." Sinon said politely. Even she wasn't able to do much, she wouldn't fool around at a boss raid.

"Oh come on, live a little." Saffi said as she threw the ball up into the air. As it came back down she charged up an unarmed skill and hit it once it was just above her head. When she was little she was criticized for doing this since she hit it out of bounds more often than not. But at the time she was ten the stopped.

It not that she changed anything she did, it's just her targets changed. Saffi had a very early growth sprunt which left her around one hundred and thirty centimeters, a height that hadn't changed much since then. But the opposing team's height had.

Saffi had incredible aim, she had never missed her mark virtual or not. Most of the other teams marked her for cheating in the beginning, but no one would do it in this world. After all they had not came across a monster that could communicate with them.

Saffi had thought all of this from the time she started the unarmed skill to the time her wrist hit the ball. The ball flew through the air and straight into Sinon's chest, which knocked her to the ground.

"Sorry about that." Saffi said as she ran over to SInon to help her up. "I didn't think it would do that much." Saffi stated after she help Sinon up.

Sinon looked at Saffi to that her cursor was still green. "How is your cursor still green?" Sinon asked. They weren't in a safe zone and the force of the ball was enough to knock Sinon off her feet.

"Oh, the ball is harmless, no matter how much I tried I can't make it deal damage." Saffi stated. She picked the ball up off the ground and tossed it to Sinon. "Feel free to throw it at me too, but I don't think it will be as effective." Saffi stated. After the words left her mouth she realized that Sinon may take offense to them but she decided not to say anything.

Sinon didn't say anything though she did contemplate throwing the ball at Saffi. That was until she say Saffi preparing to do something. "Are we going to actually do something?" Sinon asked.

"I don't know about you but I'm going to do a cartwheel." Saffi stated.

"Why?" Sinon asked. It had been forever since she thought of doing something along the lines of that and even longer since she had.

"Why not?" Saffi said in response. Though she knew that Sinon would say something back, Saffi already had a plan if that happen.

"Because we're at a boss raid!" Sinon said as if it was common knowledge.

"Can I ask you a question, why did you log into this game?" Saffi asked.

"T-To escape." Sinon said. She didn't say this immediately however, as she was contemplating on whether or not to lie and say something less depressing. But if she lied then she would just let her life from the real world sneak into the virtual.

"Well I logged into this game to have fun, and that is what I am going to do." Saffi stated as she started her cartwheel. She finished it with ease and once she was done she walked back over to Sinon. "See, live in this world if you cannot live in the real one." Saffi stated.

XXXX  
Hey, remember Saffi, now her character actually going to show off some characteristics!

If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to tell me, I would like to hear

Also we are about to get into one of my reasons for actually making this fan-fic, I hope you all will like it.

Have a great rest of your week

-Kirk


	74. Memories

Flashback(So does the date really matter)

-Kazuto and Coper(Saying a random name here won't help you but it's: Keizo)

Kazuto held his hand up and knocked on the door twice, at least this time he knocked on it the intended amount of time. This was his first time going over to a friend's house. Kazuto didn't know if he would call Shino a friend or not, but the plan was after this he would be sure of that fact.

"Hey Kirito." Coper said as he opened the door.

"It's Kazuto, I told you remember." Kazuto said as he walked into the house. As he took off his shoes he heard Coper's parents yell down asking who was at the door. Coper said it was the mailman and that it was for him. Kazuto noted that Coper lied but didn't ask him about it.

"What's your name again?" Kazuto asked once he grabbed the bag he a sat down when taking off his shoes.

"Keizo, but call me Coper, it pisses them off." Coper said as he walked back into the living room. "Come on in, we have work to do." Coper stated as he walked towards a door on the opposite wall.

As Kazuto followed Coper he looked around Coper's house. From what he could see there was a staircase that lead up to the second floor by the entrance. To the left of the entrance there was a coat closet next to a door that Kazuto assumed was the first floor bathroom.

To the right was the living area with the kitchen and dining room branching off it. Kazuto didn't pay much attention to the kitchen and adjacent dining room as he had the living area to be much more note worth. Well at least more than their average Japanese kitchen.

The living room wasn't all that big, but neither was most in japan. It had one three person couch and a singular chair. Both of the pieces of furniture pointed towards the television. The television was going something on volleyball but the fact that it was on confused Kazuto.

He knew that Coper was probably down here waiting for him but he wouldn't be watching some of that nature. Coper didn't even acknowledge that it was on and walked straight past it without even looking back. It was as if the television had been accidentally left on by his parents and Coper didn't care enough to turn it off.

Kazuto followed Coper through the living and then through the door. They walked into what looked to be the garage but it had been changed into a workshop. There were tools for assembly and disassembly, for cutting metal and welding metal.

"Did you bring yours?" Coper asked as he pulled his nervegear out from under the table in the middle of the room. Kazuto reached into his bag and pulled out one of two things in the bag, his nervegear and placed it on the table.

"Awesome." Coper stated as he grabbed Kazuto's nervegear and brought it towards him. "Just so we're clear, if mine breaks you're buying me a new one." Coper said.

"You won't break it." Kazuto stated.

"You'd be surprised at how much I didn't pay attention to my dad when he tried to get me into this stuff." Coper stated. Around when he was seven his dad tried to get him into all the mechanical stuff and all Coper ever learned for their sessions together was how to build a computer.

Granted that building a computer was nowhere near an easy task but he had built one when he was seven without the help from his dad. His dad didn't really give him much of the information to build it either. Coper pretty much just got on his dad's computer and watched video after video until he understood it.

"What do you have to break open the case?" Kazuto asked. The first step in their operation probably had to be to get inside the nervegear. Coper didn't speak to respond, he just simply pulled out tool.

Kazuto didn't exactly know the name of the tool as he had never had one himself. The tools he had were the run of the mill tools, stuff like hammers and wrenches. But he did know what it did. The tool was basically a laser gun and just as lethal. It was meant to cut through metal and well it did do that and practically could cut through anything else.

"Get out of the way." Coper said as he took off his glasses and put on a welding mask. After Kazuto got out of the way he switch the tool on the pointed it at the very top of Kazuto's nervegear. Then he turned on the laser for barely a second before turning it off.

But in that one second the laser really did some work. There was a cut across the very top of Kazuto's nervegear that was about a couple centimeters long. But that wasn't the reason why Coper stopped the laser. Apparently he forgot to set up the protective plating around the nervegear. As a result he put a burn mark on the all.

"Woah." Kazuto said once Coper turned off the gun. He had seen the whole experiment go down in one flash of light.

"Whoops." Coper said as he ran over to the wall to see the damage more clearly. It wasn't bad, Coper's reaction was fast enough to make it so he didn't burn straight through the wall. "Don't tell my parents." Coper said as he walked away from the burn mark.

"Aren't you going to cover it up?" Kazuto asked as he walked back over to the table.

"They aren't ever going to come in here anyways." Coper stated as he examined Kazuto's nervegear. The metal had a clear cut where the laser had went through and through it Coper could see that the wires were left untouched.

"Looks like it worked." Kazuto stated as he was setting up the protective plating. He attached the protection to three sides of the table then stepped back. Coper picked back up the laser gun and repositioned Kazuto's nervegear and continued firing. After recycling the procedure for about ten minutes, Coper successfully detached the nervegear plating from the rest of the nervegear.

"Woah, it looks just like a computer." Coper said as he examined what he concluded to be a motherboard. "It looks like it could handle being disconnected from the computer." Coper stated as he began he poke around at things.

"The cord was just for power and downloading then." Kazuto concluded.

"This is going to be a lot harder than we anticipated." Coper said as he scratched his head.

"Not to mention that what we're doing violates our contract, you still in?" Kazuto asked. He was having second thoughts himself but he decided that he would do it no matter the consequence.

"You think it being hard would make me chicken out, nah that's the fun part." Coper stated as he hit Kazuto on the back.

XXXX

I'm just going to say it now, I love Coper I'm sad that I killed him off. Now only if I was sad twenty chapters ago.

Also this idea was one of the reasons I started this fan-fiction is that I wanted Kazuto and Coper to do this as I don't believe my idea here is anywhere else on this site, though I am probably wrong about that.

I hope you all like this chapter and this concept and please feel free to tell how bad it is.

Hope you all have a great day!

-Kirk


	75. Mystery

March 25, 2023

-Sinon-

"Have you seen Kirito?" That was asked to Sinon just a couple of moments ago. She had been wondering he had been at and so did Asuna apparently. After lying to Asuna and walking away, Sinon opened up here friend list a glanced over it briefly.

As she thought, all four of friends were still on the list including Kirito. Kirito was on floor seventeen, probably to avoid most front line clearers, yet still get practically the same experience yield. But this brought up a question for Sinon, what happen between Asuna and Kirito?

If she didn't know any better she would have said that they had broken up but the problem was that she did know better. As far as she knew they were never together yet Asuna had tried. Plus the fact that she wanted to know where he was at lead her to believe Kirito was the one to run away.

And that didn't add up, at least from what Sinon knew. Sinon liked to think that Kirito would do what he thought would benefit other people while keeping himself in mind too. But maybe that was just Sinon exaggeration of Kirito, as she didn't know him that well.

Though Kirito wouldn't just run away from Asuna for no apparent reason. If they had a falling out maybe they would separate but she doubted that Kirito would stop coming to the boss raids. Sinon would have expected Asuna not to come to the raids but Kirito wasn't and that meant he probably left on his own accord.

Sinon watched her map as Kirito teleported from the dungeon that he was in, to the nearby town. This would be the time to confront him, while the idea was still fresh in her memory and he wasn't off grinding.

Sinon took out one of her pricey teleport crystals and teleported down to floor seventeen. Personally Sinon liked floor seventeen. It had a homey feel to it that Sinon couldn't quite understand.

The central town wasn't the biggest town but yet felt as though it was. All of the streets were wider than most plus the city had an unusual amount of greenery for SAO standards. It's main selling point was that through the center of the town was a beautiful river.

The river allowed for bridges that went over it and even for swimming if you so pleased. The river's current was the slowest Sinon had ever seen. The water looked still but if you put something in it, it would slowly drift away. The river also allowed the sound of the city to gain a new element.

The sound of flowing water made this particular city more real. But that wasn't the only thing that made this floor one of Sinon's favorite floors. Unlike most floors this floor all most had exclusively one story buildings.

Apart from some of the important buildings in the center none of them were really blocked any light from the sun. And at just the right places in the town you could see a scarlet sunset. This was one of the best sights in the game in Sinon's opinion.

To make matters even better for the town, the bridges that crossed over the river were arced so that you got an even higher view the scenery around them. You could see almost the whole entire floor from the right bridge.

Sinon once again opened up her friends list and found where Kirito was at. He was in the residential district. This district basically housed all the housing in the area. From the small amount of houses that were up for sale to the most of the floors inns were all in that one location.

She continued watching him until she noticed that he wasn't moving nearly at all, as if he was in a room. Sinon made a mental note of where he was approximately at, then closed her menu. She would open her menu once she got closer.

As she walked around she took a look at the amazing town. The game never seemed to let her down, each town seemed drastically different from the last. It was amazing how something that was created by one single man was able to be so in depth and stunning.

She continued doing this until she opened her menu back up. He was about one block down inside one of the buildings. Sinon walked with her menu open until she came across the building he was in. It was a apartment complex, or at least SAO's equivalent to it.

Sinon scratched her head. So either Kirito had a house or he was staying with someone. Neither of which did she think Asuna would like or knew about. But Sinon decide to instead of think about why she would first see the situation in it's entirety, well at least to the best of her ability.

With that in mind Sinon went up to the door that Kirito was presumably behind a knocked on it for solid fifteen seconds before opening her menu back up. No one made any sound or bother to open the door in the fifteen seconds which left Sinon to wonder if she was at the wrong door, but she was at the right one.

Sinon raised her hand once again and knocked on the door. She continued to knock on the door for what felt like forever. During this time she thought about the time when someone did the same thing but it must have been hours when he did it. And yet she never even opened the door.

But at least Kirito wasn't as cold as she was. After about five minutes Kirito gave in and opened the door. Kirito was in his usual entire just without his coat on. "What do you want?" Kirito asked. It wasn't as cold as what Sinon had expected but his tone wasn't exactly inviting either.

"Can I come in?" Sinon asked. Kirito didn't respond right away but after what seemed like a couple seconds of contemplating he nodded slightly then walked back into his room.

Sinon followed him in, not bothering to take off her shoes, she probably wasn't going to be there for long. Kirito's house was quite frankly the opposite of the floor it was on. He had only on light on, which was a lamp. Most of the room was dark either covered by shadow or didn't have any light to make a shadow with.

Besides the absence of light there were other things that contrasted the rest of the floor. The apartment itself was really small but that wouldn't be that much of a problem if it didn't feel cramped.

The apartment itself had two rooms, a bathroom and the other was basically any everything room. Kirito had it set up with a single size bed, a nightstand with a horrible lamp that barely emitted light, and a desk.

"What do you want?" Kirito asked again. There was no annoyance in his voice. He was calm yet his tone still wasn't inviting.

"So you bought a house." Sinon said as she looked around the tiny apartment Kirito owned.

Kirito nodded slightly then asked Sinon what she had wanted for a third time. He wasn't annoyed but he would rather be alone at the current moment.

"Why did you leave the front lines?" Sinon asked. She had wanted to ask what happen between him and Asuna but she didn't want to delve too deep, she had that he more broad question would give her the answer to the others.

Kirito sighed heavily then closed his eyes. He heard once again a million shards bursting out. It felt as though it had just happen but Kirito knew that wasn't true. Kirito reopened his eyes and said, "Sorry but you'll have to ask someone else that question."

Sinon was about to bombard him with another question but she looked as his face, more specifically his eyes. She could see the pain and sorrow emitting from his eyes, as if she knew the reason. But she didn't know the reason, she knew the feeling.

So instead of asking another question Sinon said good bye and left Kirito's little dwelling without saying another word.

XXXX  
So how does this chapter connect to the last chapter, start guessing now!

Also if my math is correct this is the chapter that makes my word count over one hundred thousand and the only thing that going through my head is that, we're not even on floor twenty five. Man this is going to be really long.

With that said I would like to send a great thanks to anyone who has favorited and followed and especially to the people that take the time to write a review, It means a lot to me!

If you have any question's or concerns feel free to PM me or Review!

Have a wonderful week!

-Kirk


	76. Moron

Flashback

-Kazuto and Coper(Keizo)-

"You've got to be kidding me." Kazuto said as he face palmed. He knew that his project was going to be ridiculous and nearly impossible but he never expect this to be part a the description. But that was he got for asking Coper for help.

"You brought this on yourself, why couldn't just get a gift card or something?" Coper asked rhetorically as he leaned against the wall. They were outside a store and he was trying to get Kazuto to go along with his plan.

Coper's plan really wasn't geared for Kazuto it was more geared to him as he thought of it. But he wasn't going to risk it, it was for Kazuto's project in the first place so he would be the one to risk it. Most people would call his plan kiddish and stupid and that it was, but they did have many options.

"You know why I'm doing this." Kazuto stated.

"And you're crazy, which is why you were elected to do it." Coper said as he pushed himself of the wall and looked up. The sky was completely blue, not a cloud in sight. Coper stretched, if everything went as Coper thought it would Kazuto would hate him. But hey, he's still getting the job done.

"Good luck." Coper stated with a smirk stretched across his face. Kazuto walked to entrance and stopped there. "No time for second guessing, you've got this." Coper said as he gave Kazuto and push.

Once Kazuto regained his balance, he looked straight into the store. Coper could tell that Kazuto had just regain his purpose. But before Kazuto could walk in Coper stopped him. He lean against Kazuto to whisper to him.

"This is awkward, right?" Coper whispered. Kazuto immediately pushed him away.

"Seriously." Kazuto said.

"Now you know how I feel." Coper stated with a huge smirk. "But seriously I actually need to tell you something." Coper stated as pulled Kazuto out of in front of the entrance. Coper got close enough so that he could whisper and to minimize the awkwardness that was sure to ensue.

"If you get caught, don't run, got it." Coper whispered. Once he finished the last word he immediately backed away.

"You've done this before haven't you?" Kazuto asked.

"Yeah, here's a bag plastic bag, hid it until you have something to put in it." Coper stated as he gave Kazuto a bag. "Good luck." Coper repeated himself as he gave Kazuto a push. Instead of stopping like he did last, Kazuto walked straight in after regaining his balance.

He had to do this, right? Kazuto couldn't bring himself to justify Coper's insane plan but he also did have in alternative. He had to, if he wanted to finish by the deadline then he would have to. Kazuto had pushed himself into a corner, and this was the only way to get back into the center.

Kazuto inhaled and exhaled deeply. The more he thought about it the more he didn't want to do it, but everything was already in place. He couldn't stop now, it was like giving up when the finish line was in your sight. He had too but every time he thought about he hesitated.

Kazuto ran his hand through his head. He had to do it and yet he didn't want to. He couldn't think, the more he thought the more likely he would not do it. But his actions here would be a test of how much he wanted it.

During this time he wouldn't think he just had to do. Kazuto knew this and he embraced it now. If he wanted to finish want he and Coper had started he would have to embrace it. With all of his thoughts dispelled from his mind, Kazuto looked up.

He had now gained the mindset to do what he had set out to do when he walked through the entrance of the store. And this would have worked if he had mixed other things along with his mindset. First and foremost he had no practice unlike Coper, and that's what Kazuto thought his main downfall was.

Being caught felt bad as Kazuto and felt it to be but it is not until he was in the back seat of the police car did the weight of his actions take ahold of him. Kazuto didn't fear them telling his parents, I mean his 'father' wasn't in the country.

He had also come to terms with the fact of this being on his permanent record. Kazuto had to come to terms with it before he had even entered the store. Neither of these punishments would affect him more than the one realized when he was in the car.

As Kazuto would have expected, getting arrested does cause stir in the people that are around. When he was put into the back of the car their was at least a sizable crowd of ten or so people. Kazuto didn't honestly care about all of the people staring at him but he did care about one, Shino.

Once he saw her he brought his head down without a moment's notice but he was sure Shino saw him. There goes his reason for all that he had done. Kazuto dropped his face into his hands, he now felt the weight of what he had just done. He heard the police officer in the front of the car say something but he didn't concentration to even hear more than mumbles.

He was done, he had made a mistake and now he had payed for it. His parents had striped his privileges from the internet but that really didn't hit as hard as they would have hoped. He had already hacked through their passwords and gave himself wifi back but his 'mother' had already taken his computer out of his room.

But Coper had asked Kirito for an exchange, would give Kirito one of the computers he had made if Kazuto would give him his phone. Kazuto agreed and they exchanged their pieces of technology.

He hid the computer underneath his bed, he had no interest in setting it up at the moment. He only wanted it to play Sword Art Online which he couldn't do at the current moment. He would instead be spending his next couple of weeks not doing much of anything.

Coper had asked him if he had wanted to continue their project but he was under house arrest the current moment so he couldn't. This wasn't true as he didn't want to tell Coper the real reason why he didn't want to continue.

Kazuto presumed that Coper would spend the remainder of his time before the official release of SAO on completing his project. While Kazuto would wait for the day he could escape reality, Coper would finish their project for presumably his benefit.

XXXX

Did you get Coper's plan, do you hate him now? I like him even more after this chapter.

If you have any questions or concerns please PM or Review!

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Hope you all have a great day!

-Kirk


	77. Master

March 26, 2023

-Sinon and Argo-

Sinon inhaled then exhaled deeply. She would have never even began to fabricate what she was doing current when she was in the real world. In the real world she was never one to stand out or socialize with anyone. If her classmate ever talked about her she would have been likely referred as the quiet one, well that was at least before the accident.

By her nature, Shino was quiet and watched everything happen. She was always that way and Shino felt at peace with that. That was usually how everything had went down in her day to day actions. There were very few people who actually talked to her and the majority of them Shino hated more than the people who didn't even look twice.

Sinon gripped the grass that she was laying in. She pushed herself of the ground into a sitting position. She was still on floor seventeen and she never felt as though she had became accustomed to the scenery. But this time she was sitting in the rolling hills of floor seventeen not walking around the quaint town.

The hills were much like the town that they surrounded but yet still felt like a breath of fresh air. Though it wasn't a safe zone Sinon wouldn't opposed to having a picnic here, that was just how safe it felt.

This was justified for because a great amount of passive monsters in the area. The majority of the low level monster were bulls, which didn't attack you unless you got usually close to them or you attacked them first.

There were other monsters in the area such as the birds flying in the sky which made for great target practice. There were also wolves which were only aggressive at night, and the lynx which only hunted during the day. The only thing that would attack you in the daytime was the lynx and that was only if there were no bulls around.

But the most dangerous enemy in Sinon's opinion was the bulls. Even though they don't normally attack you they have an additional gimmick. It comes from the other monsters in the area. When bulls are attacked they rampage for a couple of minutes before they cool down. During this time they go out of their way to attack anything and everything.

Sinon looked around, it was absolutely stunning. Coming from the usual urban districts of japan for most of her life she hadn't seen anything like it in real life. Though it could have been a carbon copy of the countryside in japan, that thought didn't make it any less stunning.

The hill that she was sitting on was surrounded by main other grassy hills. They looked as though they were a grassy ocean. On top of that the area was windy enough to produce waves of the caliber Sinon saw in the hills.

The wind much like the river in the town added another sound to the area. Instead of the calming flow of water, in the hills you got the whistling wind. Sinon stood up and stretched as she felt the wind blow through her hair.

"I see you changed your outfit." Argo said as she approached Sinon.

"Sorry I knew how much you loved that outfit." Sinon said as she back sat down on the grass. It was true that she had recently changed her outfit. She now had a black corset accompanied with a breast that now cover her entire chest. Sinon had also on a green vest that covered most of her torso. Along with that she had black shorts that went half to her knees.

"Ashley?" Argo asked. Ashley was a female player that had recently became known everyone. She was a tailor that was amazing but only worked for the highest of clients. As a result everything that she turned out was of highest quantity and made from the finest of materials.

"You told me to, she was expensive though." Sinon stated as she looked up to Argo. Argo hadn't changed her looked from the day Sinon met her. She was still wearing a long brown coat with a hood. Sinon had never seen Argo wear the hood whilst in a conversation but if she wasn't negotiating a deal she almost always had it on.

"You just asked me where I would go." Argo stated nonchalantly.

"And I thought it would be cheap!" Sinon exclaimed. She doubted that Argo got her rag of clothes from Ashley, she won't even let her get materials from floor five they had to be from floor eleven.

"Are you saying by clothes are cheap Shino?" Argo asked rhetorically.

Instead of responding Sinon grabbed the grass tightly. It was subtle but it still left a lasting effect on Sinon. Sinon let go of the grass. She had asked Argo to try to find out but she didn't think she would have been able to. This can't stop her though, she entered this world to escape and she let a remnant of her real life shock her this much.

"When did you find out?" Sinon asked.

"A little bit ago actually but I had some guild things to help with." Argo stated. Sinon knew that Argo wasn't in a guild and had no intent of being in one, so it must be someone else guild she is talking about.

"Who did you help?" Sinon asked.

"Diavel, he wanted to get me to recruit members and he did pay me a healthy amount." Argo stated.

Sinon laid back down in the grass. It felt good, the breeze flowing across her body and the blades of grass tickling her skin. Even this safe area was calming, she could definitely see why Kirito would have bought a house here.

Argo walked over to her and sat down next to her. "It's calming here isn't it." Argo said softly to Sinon as she too laid down in the grassy hill. Sinon didn't reply but that didn't make Argo stop talking to her. "I have a house here, nothing beats the calming sensation of this floor." Argo stated.

"You also have a house here!" Sinon exclaimed.

"I see you've met up with Kirito recently." Argo stated. "I told him to get a bigger house but he insisted to get the smallest apartment on the floor." Argo said with a slight chuckle. "How's he doing?" Argo asked.

This took Sinon aback, she had heard of the legendary info broker asking a question. Argo knew everything, or at least Sinon thought she did. "What's in it for me?" Sinon asked with a grin.

"If it's good enough I'll give you a piece of info too." Argo stated.

"Well he's… a lot he's house, dark." Sinon said.

To this Argo chuckled and sat back up. "Yeah, I knew that, looks like he won't even talk to you." Argo said with an uplifting tone. "You'll have to do better if you want so info." Argo stated.

Sinon took a box out of her inventory and place it on the ground. "I forgot to give this to you on chirstmas and a doubt you'll give me your birthday so I'll use it here." Sinon stated.

"What's in the box?" Argo asked.

"It's a present, you have to open it to find out." Sinon stated.

"What info do you want then?" Argo asked as she stood back up.

Without a second of hesitation Sinon knew her answer. "Why did Kirito leave the front lines?" Sinon asked.

Argo ruffled her hair before responding. "Do you want to know why I think he left or what happen in the events leading up to him leaving?" Argo asked.

Sinon answer her was harder to come up with but it wasn't by much. "The events leading up to it." Sinon answered.

"I'm only going to tell you the most important one, the others cost more money." Argo stated before telling Sinon the information. "Coper died." Argo stated shortly.

Sinon was surprised. She had only had one real conversation with Coper and he was no doubt important Kirito. He was important to her also but on a I need to thank you level. She had never expected Coper to die.

Coper was on of the strongest people Sinon had seen fight on the front lines. She honestly would have expected herself to die before Coper. But that fact that she didn't know about it kind of hurt her. After all he was one of the reason she was trapped in this world.

XXXX

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter!

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Next uploads are in week(Exclamation point)

-Kirk


	78. Motive

Flashback

-Coper(Keizo)-

"I'm home." Coper said as he closed the front door. He doubt that anyone was home to hear his formality but if someone was then he had too. He left his shoes untidily in the entryway and walked on into his house.

Coper looked around the first floor. Neither of his parents were home at this time and his brother would probably be home in a couple of minutes. He could since the television was off. His brother had to do homework down stairs since he always neglected otherwise.

His parents would be home about in about half an hour. They were never home when he got home, but this really didn't change what he was usually doing. His parents knew about his skill in video games and never really interrupted him when he was playing a game. Though they did tell him that if his grades slip then they would but his grades hadn't changed since grade school.

But today was different than any other day, he needed the half hour before his parents came home. Coper didn't think of their experiment as illegal but he knew it every much was. Believe it or not Coper actually read the contract for Sword Art Online's Beta.

Among a bunch of terms and service policies there was of course policies on the nervegear itself. It included things such as what you would do when it broke but it also said it was illegal to tamper with the nervegear. If those policies were broken then contract would be revoked and he would have to pay a fine.

Like most people, Coper really didn't want to pay it so to make sure he wouldn't be caught by his parents he kept all of the materials in his workshop. He of course locked the door and his parents almost never went into to there. Coper ran over to his workshop and swift unlocked the door and went inside.

Once getting inside he locked the door then pulled out Kazuto's phone out of his pocket. He would need this to complete the nervegear. During the events at the store he had originally planned for Kazuto to be a diversion, not telling him this. But Kazuto didn't have the drive to continue to their project, and left Coper to complete it if he wanted to.

And of course he did. Coper swiftly and successfully stole a couple of key items from the store but he had forgotten one. It was probably one of the most important items he needed to get but he had theorized that he could use parts from a phone to take it's place. And that's all he had let to do, either his theory would succeed and he finished what they had started or it didn't. But either way he had to try.

After about ten minutes and one freak out after his brother got home and actually said 'I'm home' something he never did, Coper finished installing the last piece to the puzzle. He was hoping that the parts he took out of the phone would act as a budget electromagnetic generator.

During their analysis of the technology inside the nervegear they came across several weird things. One was that the nervegear had an abnormally large battery pack on which they were able to replicate. Also they had found that the nervegear had a amazing electro magnetic generator.

This item took the energy stored in the battery pack and refined it making it a lot more efficient. During their testing they learned that the nervegear could last a whole entire week before it need to be charged again. Coper's phone could barely last a day.

Coper picked up the nervegear and put it on his head. He plugged the cord he had connected to the experimental nervegear in one of his computers and then laid down into the chair he had positioned in the room.

The first two lights came on while Coper carefully checks the visor to ensure it was structurally sound. Once he felt it was sound enough he relax and brought his arms down to his side. Coper breathed deeply then said "Link Start."

Coper closed his eyes and waited for the last light to come on. After about double the amount of time it usually took, the third light came on. Then Coper was bombarded with a flash of color like usual. But this time the light was a bit dimmer and Coper noticed a dropped in visual quality.

An untrained eye probably wouldn't have noticed it since the difference was minuscule. If he hadn't spent the better part of his life staring at technology then he wouldn't have been able to tell. Coper spent a couple of minutes fiddling around on the home page since he couldn't log into any games at the current moment since their were none on the nervegear.

Coper logged out and sat back up. He stretched and then start to download Sword Art Online onto the nervegear. While the slow process of downloading started, Coper started to attached the metal layer on the inside and outside of the newly built nervegear.

In fact that only part of the new nervegear that was exactly the same was the layer of metal on the outside, even the logo at the top was the same. Kazuto had managed to figure out what it was made of, and they easily built the metal layer. It took Coper about ten minutes to secure the outer layer and a little while after he was done the download finished.

Coper unplug the cord from his computer the picked up the nervegear. He walked over to an empty box and placed the nervegear in it. Once the box was securely taped, Coper picked up the box and walked over to the lonely window. With ease Coper opened the window and quickly went through the window which lend him to the right side of his house.

Once the box was secure in Coper's arms he started to walk. He didn't have to walk far, Coper knew exactly where he was going. Though Kazuto would have never expected it Coper wasn't doing it for himself. Coper was fine with the way his life was now and really didn't need to start an underground factory of nervegears.

His initial thought was just to help out Kazuto, he doubted that Kazuto that would be able to carry out his plan alone so he stepped in. Then Coper realized after the multiple times they had met up it wasn't just a project, Kazuto wanted to give the finished product to someone. So Coper helped along until Kazuto had stopped and gave to project to him.

The project wasn't really much of anything besides a way to distract himself till the official release but he wasn't going to let their hard work be for nothing. So Coper figured out how he was going to give it to and where they lived. Thankfully they didn't live far away from his family's two story house.

"Dammit." Coper said as he finally came to his destination. He looked at where he had to go, the second floor. He should have know that but that didn't make it any better. It's not that the nervegear was heavy because Coper's carried things four times its weight through an airport. It's that Coper really hates stairs. There was a reason why his workshop was on the first floor.

Coper exhaled loudly before he started to climb the stairs. The weren't as bad as Coper had thought, that was usual but what came next wasn't. Coper thought the walk would be the hard part but no that was the easy part, the hard part was just about to begin. Coper has a surprise amount of patience for his age and yet what he was about to was going to test his patience.

 _Knock Knock, Knock Knock._ Coper knew that she was home because he could hear the sink running and yet she didn't answer. Coper knocked for about three straight minutes before stopping. He ran his hands through his hair then knocked again. And again she didn't answer.

Coper slid down on to the floor. He pulled out his phone and set an alarm to go off every five minutes, every time it would go off Coper would knock. But in the meantime Coper opened up one of his many brain teaser apps and started testing his brain and patience. This went on for about three hours.

In that time Coper had went through all twenty of his brain teaser apps twice, three people walked by, none of them talked to him. His alarm went off again and he knocked on the door. And again she didn't answer. Coper scratched his head and stared at the door until he noticed something. The electronic lock.

It was very out dated, it had been awhile since Coper had seen one. But one thing he did know is that he could probably crack it in two minutes, three minutes tops, so Coper got to work. He cracked it in about ninety seconds, a new record and he knocked on the door again but this time he didn't wait for a response.

"I'm coming in." Coper announced as he open the door. Once the door was open Coper pick up the box and set it on the counter. The girl Coper had been waiting on to open up the door, was standing the middle of the room.

"How did you get in?" The girl asked.

"You should really update you lock, it only took me a couple of seconds to crack it." Coper stated.

"You were out there for hours." She said in response.

"Yeah, don't remind me, you're Shino, right?" Coper asked, swiftfully changing the subject.

"How do you know my name?" Shino asked.

"That doesn't matter, but what does is that I have a delivery for you." Coper said as he patted the box that he had just sat down on the counter. "Trust I think you'll like it." Coper stated.

"Thank you I guess?" Shino said quietly.

"It's not me you have to thank." Coper said as he walked to the entrance.

"Then who?" Shino asked.

"You'll know who to thank when you open the box, bye." Coper said as he walked out of the girl's apartment and out to the walkway. Coper exhaled loudly, he was going to get a mouthful for missing dinner.

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How do you like it?

This chapter right here was like half the reason Coper was a character I dived into.

Anyways if you have any questions please feel free to PM or Review!

Have a wonderful day!

-Kirk


	79. Menace

March 28, 2023

-Asuna, Sinon, Kibaou, Diavel, Heathcliff, Godfree Lynd, Klein, Ran, Zack, Saffi, Tsubaki, Kazuma-

"Is everyone ready!?" Diavel shouted. He got shouts of yes and let's go from nearly everyone in the raid group. Once all the shouting died down Diavel pushed open the boss room door. Everyone knew this boss was going to be a hard one, but they would have to beat it to get to the next floor.

Asuna walked in and shivers were sent down her spine. She knew what she had signed up for but there is nothing that she could do to prepare for it. That was something that maintained its place in both the real world and the virtual one. But there was constant for her too, she hated spiders.

In how she was brought up she didn't have to really deal with much of any types of bugs but there was of course the stray spider that made their way into her house. Asuna tried her best to avoid most insects but it seemed that this world had it out for her. The boss was a giant spider.

Well that isn't entirely true, it was a giant arachno, which for all intensive purposes is a spider. The boss named, The Spider Lord, and the last lord they faced spawned tiny versions of itself. To Asuna's dismay it was the same as the last lord in that way, but at least her party wasn't going to take them on.

"You ready." Kazuma said as she walked closer to Asuna. He was one of the two shield users in her party. Asuna didn't know the name of the other shield user but that didn't really matter. The only other player in her group that she knew the name off was Godfree. He was a DPS axe user from the Knights.

From what Asuna knew he was actually quite a high leveled member of the guild but he preferred to fight alongside his comrades than sit in the back. Kazuma had told her that he was also in charge of training younger members. Godfree was actually quite skilled in battle and Asuna liked as a party member in the party she was in.

"I'm always ready." Asuna said in a lighthearted uplifting tone. But she had to be ready now as all of the players were now inside the boss room. The boss room felt like a cavern. It was dark and covered with spiderwebs. The floor was made out of rocks and some type of rumble that Asuna couldn't identify.

Asuna looked up to see the giant lord a couple of meters away from her. The lord started to hiss and three smaller arachno spawn and started to run at the players. Smaller wasn't really fair because they were about as tall as Asuna but compared to the boss they were tiny.

The boss was as big as one the four way intersections her father works in, which was way to big for a spider. Asuna was quite happy that she didn't have to deal with insects of this size in the real world.

"Squad E and F keep the smaller arachno busy!" Diavel shouted. Diavel was starting to give opening directions. His directions were often vague but he gave you what you were attacking and where to attack, the rest was up to you.

"B C head on, distract it!" Diavel shouted. Asuna was in squad B and without a second of delay her whole entire squad was ready and set. They ran at the boss once squad C was with them.

In her party she had to be paired up with someone. The way Diavel had explained it awhile back was that you wanted to be pair up with someone you trusted. Though she did think that Godfree was a great player she didn't really trust him that much. She would much rather put her faith into Kazuma.

It wasn't that she had more trust with Kazuma, it was that she had the same amount of trust with Kazuma as she did with Godfree. But she had known Kazuma longer and this her trust felt more justified. Well that and one other thing. She was a pure agility build which doesn't do to well with taking damage, so she would rather have a shield to hide behind then an axe.

As they ran at the boss, Asuna purposely ran a little slower than Kazuma. If she was ahead of him that would increase her chance of attracting the boss's aggro. Though she didn't like being the one to be protected, Asuna obliged. She knew that the plan was in their best interest, if she was kept alive then she could continue to fight.

The boss had a couple ways it could attack from the front. The front most two legs could stoop on you or knock you over, both of which seemed like they would hurt. It had two pincers attached to it's mouth and if you got too close it could slam them both into your side.

Asuna hated the last way the boss could attack, not only was it biological wrong it didn't look appetizing either. The Arachno Lord would shoot silk out of it's mouth, which came from the spiders back side for a biologically correct. But Asuna also doubted that the arachno had the same structure as the spiders in the real world.

"Switch!" Kazuma yelled as he fell back. Without even thinking twice Asuna jumps into front of him and activates one of her linears and unleashes onto the lord's leg. As most bosses do, this boss also had an unusually high pain tolerance. Her attacked would only take out some of the bosses health, not delay it's attacks.

In order to delay an attack or stop it completely you have to hit a weak spot. Most weak spots were easy to figure out, an eye or some time of vital organ. But Asuna really didn't want to get close enough that the lord's head to make that happen.

The boss had an unusual amount of defense with it's high attack power. It took the brunt of their attack and just returned it back to them. After a couple of minutes of the B and C squad attacking the boss, Diavel sent in the D squad to help. Diavel had the squads sent up in power level, with one exceptions.

The one exception was his squad, the A squad. His party was what most people called the brain of the operation. He had six people in his squad and a lot of them were well known. Lynd was his second in command and he also had Heathcliff to protect the others of the party. Both of the masterminds behind the operation, Tsubaki and Ran were also in his party.

Ran wasn't there for all of the boss raids, she often asked to join one of the attacking squads but for harder boss battles she stayed back. The last one was Kibaou, he was there as a representative of the Army since Saffi didn't partake in those types of things. Asuna could tell there was some discomfort with having him in squad A, but they needed representative from each of the major guilds.

After a lot of repetition they finally got the boss down to it's last health bar. All the players were fine with Diavel's attack plans, they were nearly flawless. Everyone was there to help get everyone out of the game and deaths in the front lines meant someone who was fighting had died. No one wanted to hear someone dying, no one wanted to see someone dying.

"Everyone be prepared for a surprise attack, shield users raise your shields!" Diavel commanded. This was the part that had resulted in almost all of the deaths in the front lines. They couldn't plan an attack strategy against the boss's change of attack patterns, they had to improvise.

The Arachno raised both of it's front legs and slammed them into the ground. Once they were in the ground the lord pulled them up but the ground came with them. The boss cleared it's legs of the floor it had just broken and got into it's attacking stance. But that wasn't what the players were worried about.

From the ground that had just been broken came out tons of smaller arachno. They were smaller than the ones it had spawned during the first phase, these were about half the size of the last ones. But there were far more than during the first phase.

"Squad B C fall back and regroup, Squad E F keep the boss busy Squads B and C will be joining you momentarily, Squad D attack the boss Squad A will be joining you momentarily, Squad G provide support to D and A!" Diavel shouted the commands swiftfully and clearly.

Asuna obliged and fell back leaving room for squad A to run in. Once squad A was attacking the smaller spiders Asuna and the rest of her party charged at the boss. But like most bosses this one had gain a significant buff to both its defense and offense.

Before her squad was even close enough to attack the boss, one of the shield users from squad F had lost his shield then impaled by the boss's leg. Asuna closed her eyes and charged up her strongest sword skill, a five hit linear. She unleashed the sword skill into the boss's leg but it didn't do much of anything.

Before she had type to attack the boss again the boss impaled a spear user from the E squad. Asuna looked around, she saw a lot of players in panic mode but they still attack the boss. Except for one, he had collapsed on the floor. Asuna recognized him, she didn't remember his name but she did remember that he was in C squad and was Kazuma's brother.

After seeing this Asuna tighten her resolve, she wasn't going to be like him in fact she wanted to be the opposite. Asuna heard another played shatter but she didn't bear to look. She need to focus on the cause not the effect.

She looked up at the boss and noticed it was nearly dead, the time was now. Asuna ran at the boss's head. After dodging one of the boss's pincers she jumped up and activated her second strongest linear. The linear connected directly with the boss eyes, which brought the boss down and out.

After Asuna landed on the ground a window popped up, the last attack bonus. This was her first one, on the floor boss of eighteen she had gotten her first last attack bonus. She opened it to find that she had gotten a rapier, Destruction's End, Rapier of Light. She would materialize it latter, no need to show off when players had just died.

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Hey we're finally back to the front lines

Next chapters will be out in a week

If you have any bosses you would like to see feel free to tell me about them!

Have an amazing week

-Kirk


	80. Flight

March 28, 2023

-Ran and Zack-

"What was that about!" Ran said as she followed Zack out of the boss room. Zack had hoped that she hadn't seen but he doubted that he would be so lucky for that to happen. As he had thought he had cracked during a boss raid, he wasn't cut out for it.

"Go away." Zack said as he tried to get off his tail. His wandering slowly turn into a jog then a run. The last thing that he wanted to do was to fix or get help with his problems. No one needed to carry the burden he bestowed upon himself.

Zack continued to run, he knew that Ran was still after him. If there was one word he would describe Ran, it would be persistent. Sure this was a great trait to have, one that he didn't have himself but it was definitely an annoying one. It's hard to run away from someone who has the mindset and athletic ability to be on his heels the whole entire time.

Her athletic ability wasn't stellar, it was as though she had spent the majority of her life with little physical activity, and yet it was miles ahead of his. In high school his athletic ability was probably around hers as all he did was the usual class of psychical education. During that period he very much didn't do anything, in fact that class was lowest grade for most high school.

In those three years Zack had went from doing nothing of importance to doing even less. He went from being an average student with average grades to a below average student with probably one of the lowest grade point averages in the whole entire was like him and his brother had switch places by the end of twelfth grade.

Once Zack had made it to floor nineteen he immediately went to the teleporter and teleported down to floor ten. He hadn't friended Ran or anyone else, to be fair he really didn't like people all that much. It was a constant from the real world that had transferred into the virtual.

He had personally never planned to friend Ran, Zack knew she was trying to help but he was only okay with it up to a certain extent. His past was something he didn't want to remember but always seemed to. Without nothing it she kind of crossed the line.

Zack wasn't mad, he had not right to be as he had not warned her. But he was scared, scared of what would happen if he told what he had done in his lifetime. It was kind of strange to Zack, how a thirteen year old girl seemed to be older than he was. In the real world wouldn't he be the one to fix her problems not the other way around.

Once Zack teleported to floor ten he immediately made his way to one of tavern on the floor. Zack knew the locations of the best taverns on each floor, which is something he would have never admitted to knowing. He also had a tab at four of them. The one on the tenth floor was his second favorite place to drink.

Ran knew about his favorite tavern as that is where she first found him. It was on floor eight and that was where he had spent the majority of his time before joining the front lines. In real life he was funnily enough not an alcoholic. Which is weird to say that he had only gotten drunk in real life once.

It was his twentieth birthday, his parents were out of the country so he just went out to a bar and drank for the first time in his life. The next thing he knew he was half across town sleeping in an alley. He had a massive headache for the whole weekend and didn't even know where he was at.

You would think that an experience like that would lead him to not drink ever again but Zack was really stupid. During the few minutes of that night he remembered, it seemed as though he was having the time of his life. But before he was able to buy another glass he was practically broke. Between his rent and his hobby he didn't have enough to live on, so he could even put a little aside to buy a bottle.

In reality his job wasn't that bad, it paid well enough but Zack had a very bad habit. It was damn near impossible for him to save money. Unluckily for him that was something that passed on into the virtual world also. But his pastime wasn't in the game to his knowledge so he took up drinking.

Zack walked into the tavern and took his usual spot on the bar. Once he sat down he order his usual and told the bartender to make sure his glass was never empty. But before he got to go through his fourth glass the door opened and as he expected Ran had followed him. The only reason he went to his second favorite was because he knew she would go to his first favorite.

"What was that about?" Ran repeated herself as soon as she saw Zack. She didn't expect him to respond but she did predict what he would do. He acted as though she wasn't there and got his drink refilled. Zack was the same as he was before she intervened. Ran pulled out the stool next to her and sat down on it.

"What was that about?" Ran asked again with a more calming tone. She was little annoyed with him but it's nothing larger than how a older sister would get annoyed at her younger sister.

"Sorry." Zack finally responded after a couple of minutes.

"Sorry about what?" Ran asked as she turned to face him.

"I'm sorry that you wasted your time on me." Zack suddenly acted curtly. He slammed his fist onto the bar. He pushed himself of the stool that he was sitting on and turned around.

"No I didn't, we've made progress." Ran stated, trying to remain calm. She could tell that his whole entire body was shaking once again. "We fixed your speech, we can-." Ran stated to speak but got cut off.

"NO, spend your time doing something else, I'm not worth saving." Zack stated coldly.

"Everyone is worth saving, No one's life is worthless." Ran stated as she grabbed his arm.

Zack immediately yanked his arm forward and started to walk towards the door. Before he opened the door he turned around and said a short line to Ran. "You only think that way because you're young." And with that Zack opened the door and walked out.

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Hey look, another chapter that everyone loves… right? Well if you didn't then here some more information on my OC

Well I hope you liked this chapter!(Exclamation Marks)

Next chapter should be up shortly

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	81. Fight

March 31, 2023

-Asuna, Sinon, Kibaou, Diavel, Heathcliff, Lynd, Klein, Ran, Saffi, Tsubaki, Kazuma-

"Are you sure about this?" Lynd asked Diavel. They were waiting for the few remaining players to show up at the boss room door. It wasn't time to enter the boss room however, they had scheduled for it to begin in a couple of minutes. Most the leaders of major guilds came early however sometimes being almost a full hour early.

This was true for both Dragons Knight Brigade and the Army but not for Knights of Glory. He left his lead subordinates to gather the rest of the players they would take while he went ahead. Diavel usual checked the boss room and the boss to make sure nothing had changed and no one had beaten the boss.

Though Diavel didn't need the whole hour he had given to himself each and every time, it didn't help to hurt. Even in the real world he had given himself an unnecessary amount of time to complete his tasks. Any of his friends from the real world would say he was way too cautious, but Diavel had a different story to tell.

He had been raised in a certain way, to be prepared for everything. As a result Diavel became smart and extremely strong willed. He never second guessed himself though he always made sure he had a fallback. That is the result that his mother had wanted.

During Diavel's childhood his family hit a rough patch. His father was stockbroker and the economy plummeted they lost a lot of their money. Then with a hit of bad luck his father was hit with the flu. His family had almost no money and thus couldn't even think about paying the bill for the healthcare, even with the government paying seventy percent of it.

Diavel's father died a slow and painful death but afterwards they received the life insurance payment. Instead of sulking in her misery, Diavel's mother decided the raise the one thing of significance her husband had left her, Diavel. She brought him up giving everything he needed and teaching him one important lesson, to be prepared for anything.

Even being in the death game didn't stop this good habit of his. Though it may be a hindrance at times, Diavel kept it up. To minimize deaths and keep the front lining pushing harder and faster until they got out of the stupid game. No matter what happened, Diavel would keeping on trying to the best of his ability to get everyone out of the game as fast as possible.

"We got this, nothing can stop us." Diavel said with a huge smile. "Listen up." Diavel said over the large crowd, he had just seen the last of the players arrive. Most people would have said he shouted the last two words he said but Diavel looked at it differently. It was more of a presenting voice, so that everyone could here but not to make everyone alarmed.

"I know that the last boss battle didn't go as well as we hoped but that is not a reason to stop fighting." Diavel stated to all of the players in front of him. "We fight for those who have died and for those on the other side, are you all with me!" Diavel said. The players in front of him erupted in a roar and claps. Diavel took that as a yes and turn around and opened the door. As he did said one last sentance, "Then let's do this!"

This boss, at least before it's attack pattern changes was relatively simple. Marang's Ice Golem was a giant golem made out of ice. It stood as tall as a fifty story building and had the width of half a football field. It was also the third golem that they had faced, the other's being mud and clay.

The boss room itself was an ice palace, everything was made of ice including the floor. Along the edge of the circular room were pillars. They were connected to the wall so they offered no concealment but they did add to the atmosphere of the room.

Diavel announced his commands and the rest of the players carried them out. His plan basically consisted of two squads attacking the golem, while the other squads switched in after couple of attacks.

The boss itself relied mainly on brute strength and it's attacks showed that. All of it's attacks were slow but they were devastating if they connected. The ice golem had the ability to make it's forearm change forms. It's original form was just the same as a humans, and it tried to smash the players.

It's two other forms were variations on weapons, both of them were easy to predict. It's could turn it's forearm into a hammer, which gave it the ability to not only smash vertically it could also do a horizontal sweep with it.

In it's last form, a short sword, it's attack pattern was completely different. Since it no longer had the effectiveness of smashing a player, it's attacks turn into long and heavy slashes. They were easy enough to avoid since the short swords really didn't have that great of reach and it's attacks were still slow.

This made Diavel a little uneasy since it's last health bar could change all of that. The last time they faced a golem it had transformed into a giant snake and killed a couple of players, if Diavel's memory was serving him right. But he couldn't worry about that, he had to keep his mind on the present. Even if he was on the present he was prepared for the future, or he had Ran and Tsubaki prepared for the future.

As Diavel hoped the first three health little no threat to all, but the last one was going to anything but that. Once the boss entered his last health bar Diavel ordered everyone to fall back. Whilst in the state of changing the boss's couldn't be damaged.

All of the players watched the golem as it transformed into a giant bird. Though Diavel didn't know what exactly it was Ran told him almost immediately. It was a phoenix or more specifically an ice phoenix. The phoenix stretched it's wings and showed off all of it's ice feathers. It took off from the ground and into the air. Once the phoenix was in the air it sent a glare down to all of the players.

"I'll set defensive measures, don't take long." Diavel stated before he started telling everyone his plan in the meantime. He told both B and C squad to play defensive but keep the aggro. Then he told D E and F to get behind to boss, once the Ran and Tsubaki had a plan he would tell everyone to fall in. He was going to pin the boss in the center of a mass of players.

Thankfully the phoenix didn't fly too far of the ground. Though some of the younger players had trouble getting off melee attacks but the rest of the players didn't have much trouble. From what Diavel could tell it's melee attacks were limited to scratching anyone of got to close with it's claws.

But it made for this with it's wide arrange of ranged attacks. From what Diavel had seen so far it could throw pieces of ice off it's wings at players. It also had a frost breath which could slow down the movement speed of players. That wasn't it's only attack from it's mouth however, it could also shoot large crystals from it's mouth. Before Diavel could analyze any of the other attacks Tsubaki stopped him.

"I have a plan I just need someone to protect me."Tsubaki stated.

"Heathcliff can you hold everything here?" Diavel asked.

"Yes." Heathcliff said almost immediately.

"What's your plan?" Diavel asked Tsubaki.

"I am going to jump on it and I need you to protect me." Tsubaki stated.

"Are you sure that's safe?" Diavel asked skeptically. It didn't sound like the most sound plan he had ever heard but if Tsubaki was sure then he would go along.

"Yes, it's close range potential is next to none, if I get on top of it I should be safe." Tsubaki stated.

"Where do I need to get you then?" Diavel asked.

"Behind it." Tsubaki said as she to take out her blue shield. They had an easy enough time getting behind the phoenix and once the were behind Tsubaki asked if Diavel could be a launch pad. He accepted and got into position. Tsubaki ran back a bit in order to get a head start.

Once she felt she was far enough away Tsubaki started to sprint at Diavel and the Phoenix. While in her sprint she thought back to the real world. Not once in the real world she had ever ran much less at the caliber she was doing currently. But in the virtual world she got to do something that she never did in the real world.

Her plan was sound until she actually was on the phoenix. Like she had predicted the phoenix had no way to attack but she didn't predict that the phoenix had literally no physical strength. Almost immediately after she had began riding the mythical bird it fell to the ground.

Tsubaki didn't know if it's was a part of the bird's plan or the lack of strength but she lost nearly half of her health thanks to the impact. She got off and watched as all the other players swarmed the phoenix and killed it in almost record breaking time. Tsubaki stood up and stretched.

She was amazed at how successfully the raid was. The most damaged that a single player had taken was herself. After the last boss battle she would have expected the front lines to slow down a bit but no. Diavel really was going push the front lines through the game.

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Hey look another boss raid! And also more background on characters!

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter.

Thank you to all who have followed, favorited, and reviewed.

Have a wonderful week!

-Kirk


	82. Former

April 1, 2023

-Ran and Tsubaki-

"I need your help." Ran sighed as she sat down next to Tsubaki. They were on the new floor, floor twenty. Tsubaki was sitting alone at a restaurant before Ran finally arrived. She would have never spent time out her exploration to sit down and but an old friend had asked her too.

"I'm not going to help with him if that's what you're asking." Tsubaki stated as slouched back further in the chair she was sitting it. The response from Ran was almost instantaneous, but with no words. Ran head jolted up the slowly looked back down, Tsubaki's guess was right.

"You know, the younger you are the easier you are to read." Tsubaki stated as she looked around to see if her food was arriving.

"Did you get me some too?" Ran asked. She knew what Tsubaki was waiting on though she had never had the opportunity to see like this in real life. In real life she knew Tsubaki was a lot more patient than she was current, but the same also applies to herself.

"A sandwich, couldn't think of anything else to get you." Tsubaki stated. She had personally never heard Ran herself ever talk about food but she had heard many things from her younger sister. One thing that Tsubaki had learned from the countless conversations with Ran's younger sister is that she loved the sandwiches that Ran made.

"Thanks." Ran said. She started to tap her fingers against the table. She had no clue what she was trying to imitate with her finger taping, but it sounded good to her. It was something to pass the time and think.

Ran knew if she approached Zack upfront then he would immediately run away and if there was one thing that Zack was good it was running. That why she was wanted Tsubaki's help. Her plan was to have Tsubaki obverse him and tell her what she had noticed. In the last half a year Ran noticed that Tsubaki had gained a very useful skill, observation.

Their food didn't take long without saying another word they both indulged in their food. Though personally Ran liked her sandwiches better, she didn't have the cooking skill to yet make the same sandwiches that she made in the real world. Tsubaki's food was a soup. Ran couldn't identify what exactly it was but it looked good. "What did you get?" Ran asked Tsubaki.

"No clue, I just asked the waitress to get me her favorite." Tsubaki stated as she brought the spoon to her mouth. "You know what, it feels more satisfying to feed myself than for someone else to feed me." Tsubaki said right more she put the spoon in her mouth.

"Yeah, this game houses a lot of first for the both of us." Ran stated.

"I've got more than you though, this is probably going to be my first time finishing a bowl of soup." Tsubaki stated as she took another sip. They both sat in silence for a couple of minutes will the finished their meals, once Ran was done she started to speak again.

"Please I need your help with this, I want you to help with this." Ran stated. She wasn't sure if Tsubaki was needed for this operation but Ran didn't want to go at it alone. She wanted help from an old friend. In the new world the only person that knew her story was Tsubaki.

"No, It's none of your business nor it's any of mine." Tsubaki stated once she sat her spoon in the bowl. She had lost her appetite. In truth Tsubaki didn't know how good of friends they were but her and her sister were the only friends she had ever made in the real world.

"Why Tsubaki, I thought we were going to make the most out of lives." Ran stated.

"That pact is off." Tsubaki stated as she stared down at her bowl. There was still a little bit of soup left but Tsubaki didn't feel like eating it. It was probably cold anyways and yet she still picked up the spoon and started to swirl the little bit of soup that had collected in the bottom of the bowl.

Ran jumped up so quickly that her chair almost fell backwards. Her slammed onto the table but quickly balled up into fists. "What are you going to do, go out and grind up another level until the boss raid?" Ran asked rhetorically. Before Tsubaki had a chance to respond Ran continued speaking, "What are you going to say to my sister when I don't make it out?" Ran asked.

"I… I don't know." Tsubaki stated as she looked down at her bowl. It was weird somehow when she got scold the position the faced meant something. If she was looking at Ran then she would be confident but if she was looking down then she was timid. Tsubaki never had to deal with where to look, it's not like she would be seeing anything important.

"No, you won't be able to say anything." Ran stated. Ran walked over to Tsubaki and place her hand under Tsubaki's chin. Before she started talking again she raised Tsubaki head so that she could see her face. "You'll just lay there in your bed while she asks you about the adventures we had and all you'll have is the raid bosses." Ran said as she went back to her seat and sat down.

"I don't care if you don't help me with this but promise me that you won't say no next time." Ran stated as she looked Tsubaki's conflicted face. This wasn't the first time Tsubaki had this idea told but it was the first time Ran had said it to her.

It's was Ran's sister who had concocted their concept. Ran's sister's idea was what bonded them just a few years ago. To live life to it's fullest, it didn't matter what was going to happen the next day, all that matter was what you were doing at the moment.

Tsubaki's face fell into her arms, she was never the strong one out of them, even if she was oldest one. She felt tears run off her face on to her hands and arms. In real life she had felt the feeling of tears running from eye and down her cheek. Though tears usually symbolize sadness Tsubaki was happy a lot of the time, she got to feel her eyes actually working. But in the game it was entirely different.

Though she had just felt the weight of Ran's words it felt as though the amount of tears was unnecessary. As soon as there was even a tiny hint of her being sad, tears would fall out of her eyes. Tsubaki didn't hate that aspect of her eyes, after all the game made her feel more alive.

"What did you sister look like?" Tsubaki asked without lifting her face from her hands.

"She looks like me but she wears a headband and the color purple." Ran stated with a smile.

Tsubaki raised her face out her hands. The tears had dried on her face making it visible that she had just cried, but Tsubaki didn't care about that. She frankly never cared about what people thought about. She cared even less about how she looked, she wasn't the one seeing herself.

"I'll do it." Tsubaki said after a couple moments of silence.

"Really?" Ran asked. The Tsubaki she had know was incredibly stubborn and she had yet to persuade her to do anything.

"Under one condition, you get me a new sword." Tsubaki stated as she took out her sword and handed it over to Ran. Ran took the sword and examined it for a second before looking up dumbfounded.

"When was the last time you replaced your weapon?" Ran asked.

"Floor five." Tsubaki said as she leaned back in her chair.

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-Kirk


	83. Fracture

March 4, 2023

-Tsubaki and Zack-

One thing that Tsubaki was glad that apparently no really paid much attention to their surroundings, just not as much as herself and Ran. Zack was no exception to this fact he was quite frankly the opposite. He had seemed to have no recollection of Tsubaki or who she was.

Though she could have been offended that she didn't stand out with her pink hair she actually found it helpful. If he had recognized her then she would've probably had to used hair dye to conceal herself. Which would have yet again been another first for the death game.

Tsubaki was sitting about two stools over from Zack, which she thought personally was far enough for him not to notice her. Along with not sitting exactly next to him she got a bowl of noodles to eat while she observed him. At first she had trouble getting the noodles not to fall of the chopsticks but she quickly overcame the hiccup.

When she started to observe him she first jotted everything done but after a couple of minutes she noticed that he only did a select few things. First and the most obvious was that he drank beer. No, he downed beer. After only a couple minutes of observing him she had lost count of how many glasses he had.

Second was well not as significant as his drinking problem but it seemed to be a problem nonetheless. He was shaking, enough that if Tsubaki was half across the room she would still notice. Tsubaki swore that he had almost made his stool fall over a couple of times do to this. In addition to his unstable seating he always continuousily tapping on the table.

It wasn't something subtle like tapping a beat to a song stuck in his head. He was pounding on the table, like a musician how couldn't hear his notes. But somehow it was worse than a musical pounding on notes, at least the musician had sound to their horribleness. Tsubaki having spent the most of her life listening to music couldn't relate Zack's sound to anything.

Tsubaki looked aimless around the bar that she was in. Nothing in particular stood out to her, apart from her and Zack there were two other people having a conversation in one of the booths. Tsubaki picked up her chopsticks and picked up few noodles. After looking at it for a couple of seconds she placed the three noodles back in the bowl.

Though she was hungry, Tsubaki didn't feel like eating. The noodles weren't hot anymore and she never liked them cold. Even in the real world her mother would have to force her to finish her noodles time and time again. After she let go of her chopsticks she heard the door open and close rather quickly.

Instead of looking to see how it was but instead she tried to figure out who it was by the sound the made. It was something she had became really good in the real world but in the virtual world her sense had seemed to slip a little bit.

Once she was in the game she dedicated most of her time to becoming extremely observant, since she really hadn't the chance to in the real world. But in the real world she could who had just entered her room based off of their footsteps and nothing else. In this case however she doubt she could guess who it was, since she wasn't as polished as she could be and she doesn't know everyone in the game.

Though the players walking wasn't unusual, it reminded her of her father's way of walking. It was heavy and wasn't unbalance, the player was for sure putting their whole entire foot on the ground. It was this fact that lead Tsubaki to think the player was male and at least fifteen years of age.

Their walking was also fast and determined, they had a job to do. Though she was rarely at home when her parents left for work there was still a few times when she was young that she remember her parents, or at least her father doing so. But her memory of that event was now crystal clear.

Out of the five sense three of them have the ability to bring back long forgotten memories. Though Tsubaki had only felt two of them work she still believed that the last had the potential to also. The first sense was smell, though it really describe her experience with regain a memory legendary it still felt that way.

The second and last sense she had felt trigger this feeling of remembrance was sound. This would be obviously a more often occurrence than the other senses for her do to her usual situation. As this sense had just triggered her to remember the one time she had heard her father leave for work.

Right as Tsubaki concluded that the person who had just walked in was a late teens to early twenties male, he started to speak to Zack. The only word Tsubaki was able to catch was hello since she wasn't really paying attention, though the voice indicated that Tsubaki was right.

"I told you I'm not interested." Zack said. Tsubaki could tell it was towards the man who had just walked in. Tsubaki decided that she would not turn her head to look, that would attract to much unneeded attention. Especially when she can just as easily eavesdrop by just not changing anything.

The mysterious man snickered then sat down next to Zack. Tsubaki could that he sat down since he didn't exactly do it quietly. He was quick and unsure, though he was obviously not trying to show it. Tsubaki theorized that it was his first job and he was soo determined to get it right that he messed up.

"You realize what we'll do if you decline." The man said threateningly. Tsubaki wanted to stand up right then a there to stop the conversation, the man was obviously threatening Zack. But she couldn't she needed to know what exactly they were talking about.

"I'd like to see you try." Zack said as he slammed his empty glass onto the table. Zack seemed to really doubt that they could carry out his last threat. "If you try then you'll be waiting a long time for me to leave." Zack stated.

"You know where our base is at we have to kill you." The man stated. Now Tsubaki think she had the jist of it. The man was probably a green member of an orange guild, a criminal guild. And they had just tried and failed to recruit Zack.

"There is one difference between me and you, I'd rather be killed than kill." Zack stated without any of his usual hesitation.

There was a definite silence, no short remark from the mysterious man. Tsubaki could from his breathing that Zack had just hit a wound and that Zack had hit to pretty hard. Without even another would he stood up and left. Before he left though, Tsubaki got a glimpse of what he looked like.

The glimpse got her probably all that she could get without seeing his face. He was wearing a ragged black cloak and had jet black hair to match it. He was at least a hundred and seventy centimeters tall which told ran that she was about right with his age. Unlucky for their were no other defining characteristics.

"Leave Tsubaki." Zack said abruptly. "You have everything you need now, leave me alone." Zack stated as he drank another glass of alcohol. Unlike her friend, Tsubaki obliged without any struggle. After all he was right, Tsubaki had gotten everything that she needed to and more, therefore she had no reason to stay.

"Thank you." Tsubaki said before she walked out of the bar.

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-Kirk


	84. Friendship

April 8, 2023

-Sachi, Keita, Ducker, Tetsuo, Sasamaru-

"Come on guys I've found another pathway over here." Keita said as he emerged from one of the tunnels.

"Oh come on we were just starting to get this fire going, you're no fun." Ducker said as he stood up and wiped the gravel of his bottom.

"Keita, you did it again." Tetsuo stated once he got closer to Keita. He had left both Sasamaru, Sachi and Ducker to put out the little bit of embers they had managed to make.

"You did it again too." Keita said with a wide grin. Without hesitating Tetsuo ran back to the rest of his guild to help clean up but they had already finished cleaning up he dropped his head down and acted like he was pouting.

"Better luck next time." Sasamaru said as he gave Tetsuo one pat on the back.

"Hey!" Tetsuo shouted as soon as he realized that they were leaving him behind. Even Sachi was leaving him behind and she was never one to start up trouble. They all turned around to face him and the all started to laugh at the same time.

Once Tetsuo meet up with his group, they teased him a little bit before going off to explore the dungeon. They were exploring one of the two floor twelve dungeons and it held up too all of the stories that were spread throughout the middle levels.

Floor twelve was infamous for being a place that you wouldn't want to be in. But it had one redeeming factor, it's loot was far greater than any of the floors below fifteen. That was why the Moonlit Black Cats were there of course.

The five of them made up the Moonlit Black Cats, with Keita as their leader. Their only forward was Tetsuo who had a mace and a smaller lightweight shield. This posed an issue for the guild as of late, as the floors got higher the faster Tetsuo was overwhelmed.

Tetsuo was really good in the eyes of his guild though he knew he needed to improve. But the problem was he didn't really know who to improve. His problem was that once that was more the five enemies they kind of just over ran him. He could only keep track of a couple targets at a time, though he had improved a lot from when he had began.

Tetsuo's solution was to just get stronger but after talking to their leader, Keita they had another idea to put on top of it. Keita wanted to have another one of their members be a forward. But Keita first choice didn't pander out. When they brought it up to guild their first choice was accepted by everyone except for the person they recommended.

When they started playing the game they had all urged to Ducker to choose a reasonably class. But their constant nagging and pleas were all for nothing since Ducker choose the thief class. Though the thief class wasn't anything to laugh at it really didn't do as much as a swordsman.

Ducker was their first choice for to turn into a forward but he didn't like that one bit and rejected their idea without even thinking about it. During this meeting they did come out with a plan. Though this plan wasn't as sound as Keita and Tetsuo's plan, it was better than nothing.

While in the discussion for who should become a forward the last person who they thought would volunteer themselves did. Sachi didn't really talk or present her ideas during their meetings but this time she did. That was of course after about a half an hour of their meeting.

Sachi would have never usually said something like this and never had not in the virtual one or the real one. But in their meeting had gone from a friendly conversation to pointless bickering. Though she was deathly scared of going into a dungeon yet only being a forward she hated her friends arguing.

Sachi looked up from her shield. It seemed as though she had been staring at it for the past couple of moments since all of her guild was already ahead of her. This didn't bother her since she was always in the back but now it was different, she was a forward. Sachi adjusted her shield then ran up next to Tetsuo, who greeted her as soon as she was in front of everyone else.

The Moonlit blacks continued to walk around until they came to the clearing that Keita had found. The clearing that they had just entered was fairly big but had a heavy layer a fog so they couldn't see to the other side. Even with that Ducker noticed something on the ground.

"There's egg shells on the ground." Ducker muttered to himself as he picked up on of the egg shells. After one quick look around for treasure he stood back up. "It's a nest, lizard I think." Ducker stated as he walked back over to the rest of his guild.

"We should leave." Keita said as he placed the blunt end of his staff firmly on the ground. The rest of Moonlit Black Cats all agreed but before they could all leave they heard the sound of a skill being charged up.

They all turned around to see that the fog had lifted and in it's place was a huge lizard, Akin, Season Broodling to be precise. They all started to run even before Keita yelled for them to do so but the lizards attack was already finished loading up.

Akin unleashed a torrent of flame onto the Moonlit Black Cats. Tetsuo raised his small shield to protect his head while Sachi just continued running. Ducker also continued running while both Keita and Sasamaru jumped out of the way. Only Sachi and Tetsuo were damaged but the damage was little and could be easily manageable.

Before Keita could even announce his commands all of his guild mates were already doing it. That was all except for Sachi who was standing still. Ducker was trying to get to snap out which he usually did relatively fast.

Both Sasamaru and Tetsuo were running back with Tetsuo being a little more cautious. It took a little bit longer for Sachi to come to her senses but once she did she began to help out Tetsuo.

The boss continued to blow fire at them but now both Tetsuo and Sachi were blocking the fire. The little fire that got through was not enough to damage them heavily. Ducker was out of the clearing first like usual and with Sasamaru not long after. Keita stayed behind with Tetsuo and Sachi like he always did.

"Are you two okay?" Keita asked once both Sachi and Tetsuo got safely out of the clearing.

"I'm fine!" Tetsuo said cheerfully as he raised his hand to his head and gave a salute.

"Y-Yeah." Sachi studer quietly.

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Hey look new characters that you probably won't get mad at me for, at least not yet

I hope I got their awkward comradery off and gave them some character

Hope you all enjoyed it!

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	85. Flustered

April 13, 2023

-Asuna, Sinon, Kibaou, Diavel, Heathcliff, Lynd, Klein, Ran, Saffi, Tsubaki, Kazuma-

"Remember since it's isn't a humanoid it can't use any skills but don't be over confident because of that!" Asuna said over the crowd of players. Once she finished her little speech she gave the spotlight over to Diavel, who did his usual moving speech before turning and opening the boss room doors.

During this time Asuna stretched and readied her sword. Asuna looked at the door while she tuned out Diavel's speech. His speech was almost always the same with little variation but somehow it did manage to rally all of the players together. In that respect Diavel had Asuna beat and not just beaten but utterly defeated.

As the door opened Asuna noted that the door was made of wood, not only did she miss that last time but this was the only boss door that she could remember was made of wood. It did make sense to Asuna since she had already seen the boss for herself but she felt a little dumb for not noticing it earlier.

The boss was probably one of the most unique bosses they had yet to face. Most of the bosses before this one had taken the form of an animal, whether it be real or fantasy. Asuna couldn't identify what it was and the closest Tsubaki and Ran got to identifying it was a ball of splinters.

Protector of the Forest is what the boss was called, it could be a name but Asuna didn't know if it was even 'alive'. That didn't matter though since it was at least able to attack them. Besides being a ball of splinters about the size of Asuna it also had protective shields around it. Each of these shields soak up ten hits before breaking and they cover the ball completely.

Once all of players were inside the boss room the boss started in flurry of attacks. It's first attack was throwing thousands of splinters at the players. This was easily deflected by the massive amounts of shield users they had brought to the fight. Then protector launched its second wave of attacks.

Two snakes with the circumference of about a slide came out of the ground. They weren't snakes per say since they were made of splinters. They started coming at the place with reasonable speed, not too fast but not too slow. As the advance on the players the snakes dove in and out of the ground which basically was just a bunch of splinters.

"Formation B!" Diavel yelled. In the meeting before this they had came up with formations to use since the boss really had no pattern of how it attacked. Even with that both Tsubaki and Ran came up with countermeasures, they weren't as solid as their usual counter measures but they were still effective.

As they prepared their defense the boss was already preparing another attack. It's next attack came from above, the ball of splinters made parts of the ceiling fall on them. It wouldn't have been to bad to have parts of the wooden ceiling fall on them but the boss was able to manipulate wood, turning it's shape and size deadly.

The boss turned the parts of the ceiling to small but sharp spikes and there were tons of them falling. Asuna ran out of the way as most of the DPS based players did. The shield hid underneath their shields as it was already tested that the bosses attacks didn't have extra durability damage built into them. After all the spikes successfully made it to the ground Diavel started to shout out his commands.

"B C D push towards the boss, A E F take care of the snakes." Diavel shouted as he and the rest of his squad ran towards on of the snakes. Asuna noted that he didn't give Squad G, the support squad any commands. That didn't really affect Asuna but it did make Asuna wonder why Ran had went out of her way to keep that squad in the raid.

The G squad was the support squad and as of the twenty second floor they had only long range damage. This squad had both Saffi and Sinon in it along with four other members that Asuna didn't know the names of. If timed right their attacks could stop an enemy skill in it's tracks

But that is part of the reason Asuna didn't understand why they were still here. The boss's prevent any interaction from their weapons and not only that but the boss had no skills to speak of. Plus a great number of it's attacks were projectile which made it harder for them to get a clean shot.

Asuna did a roll to dodge the snake's attack and then she turned around and realized that she didn't stay with her squad. She stopped running towards the boss and waited for her squad to catch up with her. While she waited for them she looked at the boss while keeping an eye on both of the snakes.

Thankfully both of the snakes were preoccupied by Diavel squad and the other two squads. The boss however was doing something while it was left unchecked. It was sucking up the splinters on the ground around it, probably restocking since it's attacks that it used on them took a lot of wood.

Asuna and her squad advanced on the boss along with the other two squads but once they were near the boss it launch an attack. Without warning it shot out splinters in every direction. The splinters weren't awfully fast about as fast as Sinon could throw a knife but slower than her arrows.

Asuna got behind a shield user like most of the other armorless players. The players who didn't have a shield user close enough used their weapons to protect their torso. The attack wasn't meant to be lethal but it could have been. The boss was using that attack to either buy time or keep them away or maybe both.

The boss didn't seemed to be doing anything so all three of the squads attacked at the same time. But this was a mistake the boss was preparing something and they had learned about it all to late. Asuna got off five strikes before she noticed that it was preparing something. "Everyone, fall back!" Asuna yelled as she doubled back.

Everyone in her squad fell back and so did everyone in D squad but C was a lot slower at getting out. Two of the players in that squad were still near the boss when it started it's attacks. Asuna watched as giant spikes emerged out of the ground. One of the players was lucky enough to get out without any scratches, the other player wasn't nearly as lucky

As the spikes emerged out of the ground the player ran but spike emerged out from underneath his feet, piercing straight through his left leg. Asuna and the other players could see many splinters protruding in a couple of different areas on his calf. Then the player's leg shattered and he fell hopelessly onto the ground.

Before Asuna could run and help him the Protector already had reached him. Asuna watched as they boss moved the shield until none of them were obstructing the view of the helpless player. The ball of splinter slowly lowered itself onto the player but once it came into contact with the player it started to rotate rapidly. Before they knew it the player was nothing more than disassembled body parts that exploded only a moment later.

Asuna stared in disbelief. They had lost a players in raids before but it had been forever since a player died in the first stage of the boss. This was no doubt going to be a challenging boss.

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Next chapter's will be out in a week

Have a wonderful week!

-Kirk


	86. Familiar

April 13, 2023

-Asuna, Sinon, Kibaou, Diavel, Heathcliff, Lynd, Klein, Ran, Saffi, Tsubaki, Kazuma-

Asuna didn't know the player personally though it felt like she had. No matter how different they were in the real world they all had one goal now, to get out of the death game. Though some of the players had other goals this was one that no doubt pass through each and every player's mind.

That was her reason to fight. If she didn't have Kirito to fight next to then she fight for the rest of Aincrad. She would be a fighter for the players who couldn't, to make sure they made it out unscathed. That's why when she saw that player die without her being able to help, she was furious.

The player in question was one of the spear users in squad C. Asuna didn't know anyone personally in the squad at the current moment but both Ran and Kazuma's brother would be in the squad. The squad was made up of a combination of the important guilds on the front lines, Knights of Glory, Dragon Knights Brigade, and The Blood Oath.

Heathcliff's new guild, The Blood Oath was nothing compared to the size of Knights and Dragons but it's skill was on par. The player in question had on heavy silver armor with a two handed longsword, this in dictated either the Army or Dragons. Both Knights and Oath had colors for their guild while Army and Dragons didn't.

Asuna knew that the player that just died was most likely from Dragons since most Army players were in squads E F and G, with the only exception being Kibaou in squad A as a representative of the Army. Slowly, the spikes around the boss slowly sunk back into the ground and once they did Asuna brought her sword back up.

"Are you okay." Klein asked as he walked over to her with the rest of his party. Klein was the leader of Squad C, which was basically Fuurinkazan party when they participated in the raid. Though she only personally ever talked to Dale and Klein, Asuna knew that their were ten people in Klein's guild.

"I'm fine." Asuna stated roughly as she got into one of her stances. "Klein, cover me." Asuna said once she felt she was ready to attack. The last she had attacked the boss's shield she had got five hits off. Asuna identified the one she had attacked last and sprinted at it.

She ducked under the ring of splinters the boss had thrown at her and before she knew it she was already on to of the boss. Once she lined herself up with the correct floating shield she unleashed one of her five hit combo's on the boss. The effect was almost instantaneous, the boss just lost one of it's shields.

But before she could launch another attack, the boss launched one of it's own. Asuna couldn't tell what it was because she was close up but she knew it was going to hurt. The splinters impaled Asuna at her stomach and knocked her quite a ways back. It took just over a third of her health.

Asuna slowly stood back up since the pain was still evidently slowing her movements. As she stood up she caught a glance of the squads fighting the boss. Another one of shields was now down and the boss had already lost a sixth of its health. It was apparent to Asuna that besides it's shields it didn't have much of any defense.

Before Asuna could back at the boss, she saw an arrow fly past her head and into the boss. What impressed Asuna about that arrow was that not only did it hit its mark, it dodged three squads of players to do so.

"You okay." Sinon said once she finally reached Asuna. Asuna nodded after looking to confirm it was Sinon. Then she turned her head back around and started to walk towards the boss.

"Stop, you need to rest." Sinon said as she grabbed Asuna's shoulder and tried to hold her back. Asuna pushed Sinon's hand off her shoulder and started to walk towards the boss. Before she could barely get anywhere Sinon stepped in front of her.

"They'll be fine, both of the snakes are about to die, and the boss is nearly at half." Sinon stated as she opened her menu. She materialized a health potion and gave it to Asuna. "Drink this then go back in." Sinon said once Asuna had the health potion in her hands.

Sinon looked up to see that the boss was already at half. This didn't really surprise Sinon all that much after all the boss had only two bars of health with very lackluster defenses. Sinon pulled out another arrow and readied it on her bow. After taking about a second to steady her shot she let go of the string.

As expected the arrow hit its mark dead on but it had done no damage. The boss was entering its second form and during the time of when it changes it cannot be damaged. Sinon watched as the boss started to slowly float upwards. Once it was about thirty meters of the ground it started to transform.

Or rather it started to gather more splinters. The boss started to suck in all the wood from the walls and ceiling behind it. This made a dangerous turret of splinters behind it and most of players were glad it was only doing that from the back.

It continued to do this but it had also started to shoot huge bullets of splinters for the players to avoid, each one was about the size of a school bus. Some of the lesser skilled players had trouble avoiding it but they all managed to get by with just a couple of splinters. But they wouldn't be able to stay this for ever, someone would make a mistake and die.

They needed countermeasures, and that was something Ran had already planned ahead for. In its first stage it never touched the ground but the melee players would have no trouble attacking as it only hovered above the ground. But it second stage could change things.

In another boss battle they had faced an enemy that didn't touch the ground in the entire battle. The dragon in fact had no way of touching the ground. Fearing that this boss may use the same strategy, Ran brought along ranged support. Though she knew that their help during the first phase would be next to nothing, their help in the last phase could be invaluable.

"Saffi, Sinon commence first attempt!" Ran yelled at the two. It was entirely her plan, not even a little bit a help from Tsubaki. Her plan was to use a special item drop that Saffi had found on floor twelve. It was from the field boss of that floor, it's name being Akin's fire pouch. Which it radiate heat and burnt Ran's hand when she touched it.

Ran's plan was to get the pouch up to the boss, but how is when Saffi and Sinon come in. In the boss battle with the dragon they were able to knock it out of the sky with a ball. In this battle all they have to do is get the pouch to touch the boss.

Ran watched as Sinon tossed it up into the air and Saffi positioned herself to hit it up. Saffi's arm pulled back and she grinned as her eyes traced the fall object. Ran thought she was going to break the item until she realized the Saffi wasn't going to use a skill to launch it up.

In the real world Ran had never plan sports of a kind so in turn she wondered how Saffi was going to get it all the way up there. Her knowledge of sports and that stuff was limited to what she had watched on the television. Whenever sports was on in was always volleyball since apparently there was a new prodigy. Ran never paid much attention nor did her sister.

Ran watched as the pouch connect with both of Saffi's arms and flew up into the air. Everyone's eyes followed the pouch including Saffi's. It flew up and hit the boss squarely in the middle of it's mass. It shatter on impact and fire flew out of the pouch in every direction. Most of the fire had latched itself onto the boss.

Everyone watched as the boss's health rapidly dropped from full to half the to nearly none but the boss still had one trick up it's sleeve. It absorbed all of the wood around it and exploded, shooting flaming wood in every direction.

Most of the players were far enough away so that this last ditch effort didn't effect them. All but two of the remaining players hid behind shields. The two remaining players, Sinon and Saffi used their ranged weapons to knock the flying wood out of the way. After all the wood had hit the ground, the congratulations banner appeared and everyone sighed. Though the boss was easier than they had expected, it still wasn't easy.

"What did you get." Sinon said as she looked at Saffi.

"Nothing, if a boss self destructs then there is no item drops." Saffi stated as she smiled and looked up to where the boss had been just moments ago.

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Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

My profile has been update with the Moonlit Black Cats there

If you have any questions or concerns feel free to ask

Have a wonderful day!

-Kirk


	87. Fishing?

April 16, 2023

-Kirito-

Kirito stretched and grasped the piece of equipment he had in his hands. It was longer than his usual equipment but it was a hell of a lot lighter. Kirito could easily balance it in one hand if he had wanted to. But that wasn't how he intend to the use the piece of equipment he just bought for a little more than twenty thousand col, he was going to attempt to catch his dinner. Or at least what he was going to sell, then use the money gained for dinner.

Currently Kirito was walking over to one of the many lakes on floor twenty two. For a floor that had no significance whatsoever it was actually quite beautiful in Kirito's eyes. There was almost no monster around where he was at so he didn't have to deal with the usual threat of death.

If Kirito had to say why floor twenty two was beautiful to him, he really couldn't pinpoint why exactly it was. Kirito was never really for telling people why he felt a certain why about something, especially something was negligible as background. Since Kirito kept to himself he didn't know why some of more complex feelings were triggered by and thus he really didn't know why he liked the background. But he wasn't completely oblivious to his feelings, Kirito could tell what the floor felt like. To him, floor twenty two did feel like floor twenty two, It felt like home.

Kirito didn't know why this floor felt like home, it just did. From what Kirito could tell there was almost nothing alike between the two places. Kirito had lived in the suburbs so the large forest and lakes were foreign to him. Along with that the animals he saw on a regular bases were pets and birds apart from the rodents and insects. They were nothing compared to the deer and foxes that wandered through the forest.

Without even paying attention to his surroundings, Kirito walked up to the edge of a dock on probably the largest lake in the area and sat down with his legs dangling off the side of the dock. After Kirito activated a skill that he never used before, fishing, he cast the line into the lake. Though it didn't get as far as he had hope it was still that it would suffice. After a couple of seconds he was lightly tapped on the shoulder.

"Kirito… wasn't it." Said an unrecognizable feminine voice to Kirito. The voice wasn't necessarily unfamiliar but Kirito couldn't for the life of him tell who had tapped his shoulder. Kirito looked up to see what he would think was a teenager slightly older than him, maybe fifteen or sixteen but Kirito doubt much higher than that.

She had silver hair that was certain unique to her as Kirito didn't remember anyone else he had seen with silver hair. Her hair came down almost to her eyebrows and just past the shoulder blades on her back. Both of her eyes were a nice shade of teal and her skin was just a few shades lighter than his own. From what Kirito could tell she was barely one hundred and fifty centimeters(Approx, Five feet) but yet again Kirito wasn't much taller than her. That didn't help Kirito out at all however, he still had absolutely no idea who the girl was next above him.

"You don't remember who I am, do you." The girl said with a slight laughter in her voice. Kirito suspected that it was at herself but it was highly likely that it directed at him. She opened her menu and materialized out a fishing rod and started to fiddle around with it. "You know I had never even fished once in the real world." The girl started as she cased her line into the lake. It went quite a bit further into the lake than Kirito's. After sitting back down she continued the statement she had started just moments ago.

"In the real world my grandfather always asked me to go out on the lake with him but I was always to busy." The girl stated with as she smiled to herself through the reflection that the lake water was giving off. "I wish I had now, I never know if I will ever get a chance to now." She finished as she looked over to Kirito.

"It's kind of the same of the same for me I guess." Kirito stated as his gaze didn't shift from his fishing line to the girl while saying this however. In addition to his eyes being to transfixed on the fishing line, Kirito's hands were glued to his pole. Kirito exhaled, this definitely was one of the most dramatic change of pace he had felt in a while, going from grinding levels all do to fishing at the edge of a dock were definitely polar opposites.

The girl sitting next to him was acting the complete opposite to how Kirito was. Instead of being completely tense and stiff she couldn't sit still and was very much relaxed. The bobber that was floating in the water wasn't where her eyes were usual at though they did cross paths very now and then. She had also placed her fishing pole on the dock as she really didn't need to hold it.

"You know, if you don't want to hold your fishing pole I could give a bobber." The girl stated as she looked over to Kirito again. She didn't know how many times she had looked over at Kirito during the last couple of minutes but it was certainly a lot. That wasn't all she was looking at however in fact she had noticed that Kirito's line didn't have a bobber.

"What's a bobber?" Kirito asked as he finally broke his line of sight with the fishing line though his hands were still glued to his pole.

"You went fishing and you don't know what a bobber is!" The girl laughed to as she twisted her head to look at Kirito diagonally. In response to this Kirito scratched his and gave a faint smile. "You've got to be kidding me, reel in your line, I'll help you." The girls said she scooted next to Kirito.

Kirito didn't have much trouble reeling it in though he did manage to almost take out the girl's eye. Once it was completely reeled in he gave the fishing rod to the girl and watched her start to attach what he thought was the bobber and something else. But Kirito's eye wandered up to the girl once more and he began to wonder where he had seen her before.

After pondering for awhile he did start remember that he had seen someone with silver hair. Even her dress was the same, though Kirito still couldn't tell what exactly she was wearing. She has a one piece skirt and a coat thing that gave her sleeves, though it didn't cover her front side. On her legs were knee high socks that reached just past her knees. To finish her outfit she hand a type of fancy boots on.

"My names Saffi by the way, your staring was making me a tiny bit uneasy." Saffi stated as she looked at Kirito, breaking her momentarily concentration. She extended her hand out to Kirito for a handshake and Kirito accepts it after telling her his name.

"That's who you are!" Kirito stated as was shaking Saffi's hand and doing a mental facepalm. "How's the army doing?" Kirito asked as soon as he broke their handshake.

"Not too bad A little slow but we have an important boss fight coming up." Saffi stated as she finally finished what she was doing and handed it over to Kirito. "It's a little boring, I have been thinking about quitting." Saffi said as she leaned back and watched Kirito cast his line into the pool. It didn't go as far as last time but once again it was far enough.

"Why, I bet they pay well." Kirito stated once he successfully place his pole on the dock, slightly off the edge.

"I have a hard time doing one thing for a prolonged period of time." Saffi stated as she crossed her legs so that her left and right legs were perpendicular to each other and parallel to the ground.

"Really?" Kirito said, kind of astonished.

"Yeah." Saffi said as she grinned at Kirito.

"Does that mean you would leave the front lines?" Kirito asked as he turned his head look at Saffi. She wasn't sitting right next to him as she was just a couple of moments ago, she was over near her fishing rod, presumably making sure it didn't pulled away by some fish. Saffi placed her fishing rod back on the dock and looked over to Kirito.

"Leave behind things that aren't necessities, if I got bored of eating would you expect me to stop?" Saffi rhetorically asked and paused to give Kirito time to think of an answer he would most likely not get a chance to say. "No, Right… Well the front lines are not something anyone should not do, it is a necessity." Saffi stated with breaking her eyes away from Kirito's.

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Fishing, because everyone loves fishing!

Thanks all to have Reviewed, Favorited, and Followed!

Next chapters will be up in a week

Hope you have a great week

-Kirk


	88. Frenzy

April 16, 2023

-Kirito and Saffi-

Kirito gaze didn't break while it sounded as though Saffi was accusing him of leaving the front lines, which of course he did. "Where did you learn to fish?" Kirito asked her out of the blue to hopefully change the subject. Without much resistance or contemplating Saffi immediately adjusts shifts her gaze to her bobber in the water.

"In the real world I had a ton of enemies, or rather a ton people who just hated my guts." Saffi stated as she turned back to look at Kirito. Her gaze was strong as ever unlike the length of which she stared him for. It was as though a hole entire army was looking at him but only for a slight second before looking away.

"Why?" Kirito asked. He himself never got into the popularity picture or into socializing so no one really ever hated his guts nor did he ever hate anyones. Though the downside to that was that he didn't get many friends ands the ones that he got weren't the best of friends. They were the kind of friend you talk to during the one class you have with them but don't talk to anywhere else.

"I was kind of a greek idol?" Saffi said unsure of herself because she doubt that Kirito would get what she had just said as he was a lot younger than she was. "I am superlative at everything, omniscient?" Saffi said after she saw the look of confusement on his face and the look continued through her explanation. "How old are you?" Saffi asked Kirito.

"Fourteen." Kirito stated. It felt kind of odd that in his first six months in the death no one had asked him that very question yet. Though yet again he had never asked that question to anyone else in the game either, so he wasn't one to judge.

"Really, I thought you were at least seventeen maybe even sixteen never did I even think that you were fifteen but fourteen, seriously?" Saffi said, flabbergasted.

"How old are you then?" Kirito asked in retort.

"Twenty three, people say I look young for my age, I tell them that I switched bodies with a pre-schooler." Saffi said humorously before she let out one small giggle. "Basically people say that life comes to easy for me, anything I try to do I do at highest skill and produce the greatest results." Saffi stated while she looked Kirito dead in the face, almost to convey that she wasn't kidding one bit.

"Everything?" Kirito asked.

"That's what they say." Saffi responded in rehearsed. As if she had said a million times before and knew how long each word had to be to get the desired effect.

"Can you duel me with swords then?" Kirito asked as he opened his menu. He didn't send the duel request but he within a couple seconds of her saying yes he would. Saffi said yes and that she didn't feel that she was competent with her sword skills yet but wanted to test them. They both left their fishing poles at the dock as they walked to ground and spread three hundred millimeters apart.

Saffi had already accepted the duel request and pulled out her sword before they were even off the wooden dock. Her sword was from a quest on floor twenty, most people who didn't have a use for it would've thrown it away but Saffi hoarded it and practiced with it.

Kirito still had his white sword from the last time Saffi had seen him. They both got into stance with Kirito's obviously more practiced than Saffi's but both of theirs looked to be littered with openings. Kirito had his pointing diagonally down to right of him, while Saffi was holding the sword backwards so that the blade stretched across her forearm.

When the clock hit zero Saffi was the first one to attack, it seemed as though she didn't want to be on the defensive. With her sword still held backwards she attack Kirito. If the sword wasn't in her hand it would've looked she was trying to punch him in his face but she did have a sword.

Kirito quickly easily block her strike with his one sword but he didn't expect was how much strength she was exerting. It was as though she had put her full power into that one attack, but lucky for Kirito that wasn't much compared to his strength. Kirito easily pushed her off to his right and launched a horizontal that he didn't have high hopes for, any swords wielder should be able to block.

And Saffi was a sword wielder, not as competent as Kirito or any of the front liners for that matter but she was one and thus she easily block Kirito's attack as she retreated. Once Saffi got far away enough from Kirito she would have launched another attack but her plans were cut short since Kirito was attacking her.

It was easy enough to parry and dodge Kirito's first couple of attacks but Saffi knew that she couldn't keep it up. What scared Saffi was that Kirito didn't seem to be slowing down, in fact he was getting faster. With the little time that she had, she quickly and hastily launched a weak horizontal at Kirito. No matter how weak her attack was if it hit Kirito's neck it would cause significant injury, and he knew this.

Thanks to his wicked fast reaction time he was able to knock away Saffi's sword before it even got close to his neck but by the time he did however Saffi had gained enough time to almost get away. If Kirito didn't have as fast of reaction time as he did she would have but alas he was quick enough.

Kirito quickly trusts forward without any regard for aim and still manages to hit his target but only just. His sword hit the ones and zeros of Saffi's hand but didn't have enough length to go through her whole hand. That little attack costed Saffi a tenth of her health, one fifth of the way to half, one fifth of the way to losing.

If she was at full health she would have never dared to do what she was about to do, but she wasn't at full health was she. As Kirito retracted his sword back to his side she dropped to her knees and launched a close range vertical. At this close of range Kirito would have never expected to dodge her attack and he was right, he only half dodged.

Seeing her incoming Kirito jumped up to hopefully avoid her attack but he didn't have high hopes to dodge it. Nevertheless the beater's right leg dodged it since it jumped off the ground first but his left leg got hit and he lost a quarter of his remaining HP. One more attack like that and he would lose the duel.

Once her attack finished Saffi retreat but not without some repercussions. As soon as Kirito had hit the ground he to launched a horizontal at Saffi and got basically the same effect as her's did. It hit Saffi's left lower calf and almost went through but lucky distance was on her side once again. If it had then Saffi would have lost the duel but the little distance the she had put between Kirito had saved her but only just.

She now had just above half health, once she hit's half she would lose. One tiny scrap across her hand could leave her to lose and Kirito knew this. He was just a few seconds behind her, far enough that he couldn't attack but close enough that if she stopped he could. Saffi stopped and immediately launched a diagonal. It wasn't to attack Kirito, quite the opposite it was defend herself.

As she had expected Kirito was practically on her heels and would launch an attack once she stopped. Saffi knew that hard part wasn't blocking Kirito's first attack, it was blocking all the ones after that one. With Kirito's pure strength and attack speed he could easily overwhelm Saffi but all Saffi needed was an opening.

That need come as Saffi was facing probably one of the strongest swordsman in all of Aincrad, he would just show her an opening. What made it harder was that Kirito was constantly bombarding her with attack after attack, so even if there was an opening it would be difficult to find yet alone capitalize on it. After about blocking and dodging thirty of Kirito's attacks Saffi decided that she would attempt to create an opening.

Saffi waited for Kirito to launch a horizontal and after not too long he eventually did. Instead of jumping away or knocking it away, Saffi slammed her sword into the ground between her and Kirito's sword. But this didn't change Kirito's attack as he still had his sword collide with with Saffi's. That wasn't to say he didn't change anything, instead his attack just being an average horizontal, he put all of his strength and power behind it.

This was immediately noticed by Saffi once their two swords connected as she had to use all of her strength just to keep the sword in it's place. She could feel the integrity of the sword letting go, either it was going to break or it was going to be removed from the ground. Once Saffi realized this, she jumped up and launched a vertical at Kirito.

Kirito easily moved his sword around to block her incoming strike but it never came. Instead Saffi had used sonic jump to jump even further into the air once she saw that her attack was going to be easily blocked. Once she was at the pinnacle of her jump she redirected herself to go down and hit Kirito directly. She readied her sword by pulling her right hand back behind her head.

Her left was fully extended out in front of her as she fell back down to the ground. She was falling faster than she had imagined that she would but that still wasn't enough. Saffi doubted that with the velocity she had gain it would be enough to overcome Kirito, she needed to do something more tricky, or she wouldn't have the upper hand.

Once she was just above the point in which her sword would connect with Kirito's she used another one of her sonic jumps, angling herself diagonally down so she wouldn't go to far but it would be a very sharp change of direction for Kirito to handle. As she fell towards the ground she threw her sword at Kirito's head.

Saffi knew that even her trickery that she just used wouldn't be enough, Kirito's reaction time was faster than anyone she had ever faced, real world or virtual. After the sword left her hand she activated her last sonic jump aimed directly at Kirito's midsection. She was going ridiculously fast at Kirito but her sword reached Kirito first as she had expected.

Kirito easily knocked it away but he wasn't fast enough to knock away Saffi, who had just tackled him. He quickly got up but Saffi was much faster as once he got up he was nailed in the side his head with Saffi's right foot. Those two attacks were enough to bring Kirito under half and give Saffi the win.

"You need to find someone to spar with?" Saffi said she stretched.

"Why?" Kirito asked.

"You rely on your reaction time when I was doing things that you didn't expect, though you did quite well, someone who is faster than me would have an easy time against you." Saffi stated as she picked up her sword off the ground.

"So you're saying that I'm not strong enough?" KIrito asked accusingly.

"Basically, Against someone who had your level of strength you would be on the defense most of the time, you don't do anything unexpected, you rely on your strength, power, and reaction time to gain the up hand, not your brain." Saffi said as she dissolved her sword into her inventory. "In order for you to be stronger than you already are, you have to put yourself in situations that you don't know how to deal with and then overcome them with your mind not your power." Saffi stated.

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This is later than usual, so I hope that is all right with all of you.

Also this is the longest chapter as of right now.

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter!

Next chapter will be up in a few

-Kirk


	89. Fracus

April 17, 2023

-Asuna, Sinon, Kibaou, Diavel, Heathcliff, Lynd, Ran, Tsubaki, Kazuma-

"Is everyone ready!" Diavel yelled over the crowd of about forty players in front of him. They weren't exactly being loud but if he shouted then it gave him a bigger presence. In school he had learned that he had to speak clearly and loudly when presenting but in the game he had learned that the louder you were the more you were noticed. And as he expected his last three words were met with yeses and the like.

Diavel turned around and looked towards his partner, Lynd. Though he was in a different guild and the fact that the hadn't known each other before the death game, they were still great friends. Lynd gave him a nod and Diavel pushed the door open.

Most of the other guilds were against the fast paced clearing strategy that Diavel had enacted. After all they were clearing floor bosses left and right, which left little to no time for front line players to catch a break. But they couldn't argue with the results, over the last month they had cleared ten bosses and were now almost a quarter of the way up. The guild that always backed him up was the dragons, Lynd's guild.

Most of the other front lines guilds came nowhere near the size and power of the Knights and Dragons. They were two of the original three front lines guilds the other being the army which didn't really have the levels that they had. Most of the guilds which did have the same level didn't have enough members.

One of the best small front lines guilds was Fuurinkazan which had ten members. Diavel didn't know exactly how big dragons was but he knew that it just a little less than his guild. The Knights of Glory had just under one hundred members and all of the had the levels to participate in the boss battle. Diavel usually picked out his five strongest and brought them along and the same went for Lynd.

Only two of the other guilds besides the army had that many members in the raid. Fuurinkazan and Heathcliff's guild, The Blood Oath had strong enough members that they each got to have four to six players in a raid. After the other smaller guilds and solo players were accounted for, the Army took the remaining spots.

In a typical raid they had about seven parties of six, which made about forty two players, but recently they had increased the raid party by an additional party. It was only for this boss battle since the boss room was larger than the others. Normally this wouldn't have happened but Diavel wasn't going to be commanding this raid, Heathcliff was. After the last boss raid Heathcliff had asked him if he could command this raid and Diavel had obliged.

Diavel looked around to see that Heathcliff's commanding was rather good or at least as successful as his were already in the middle of the boss fight against, Takara, the Resilient. Which didn't look anything like it's name, in fact it was a dinosaur. A dead dinosaur to be precise.

It looked like a velociraptor but instead of having hands in had the end of a scythe. And unlike a velociraptor the boss was at least double the size of a Tyrannosaurus Rex if not more. Besides for it's to huge scythes it had on huge tail. The tail didn't look lethal at all it just looked like a normal tail but when it hit you it felt like your entire body was going to break. Lucky for Diavel he knew that from experience.

Diavel readied his sword and shield, Heathcliff just announced that squad A was going to attack the boss head on. All of the other squads had already been carrying out their orders and it seemed like Heathcliff just wanted to make sure everything was going fine before he went in. Heathcliff readied his sword and shield as Diavel walked up to him.

"You sure are good at this." Diavel stated once he was standing next to Heathcliff. He was ready to take off at top speed at any moment.

"Thank you." Heathcliff stated as he looked towards the boss. Diavel thought he was searching for a weak spot in the boss's defenses. Personally Diavel didn't see any but he hadn't gotten used to the weak spots of boss's yet.

"Attack the bottom of the boss's neck, it should cause sever damage and will most likely stop it temporarily." Tsubaki said from behind the two shield users. Diavel had heard someone walking up to them but hadn't paid it much attention. He was paying a lot more attention to the boss and the other squads. Before Diavel knew it the rest of his squad was standing behind him.

"You ready?" Diavel asked as he place his left foot in front of his right one.

"Yes, we'll take Tsubaki suggestion, attack the base of it's neck." Heathcliff stated before he started to run at the boss. The rest of the squad followed behind Heathcliff with Ran and Diavel closest behind him.

Diavel watched as Ran out ran him and the follow leader in front of him with ease. Then she used a vertical jump be able to reach it's neck. Once she was on the same level as the boss's neck, Ran sliced the base of it and fell back down to the ground. She landed on both her feet and then back away from the boss. It was clear to Diavel that the boss had some level of defense as it didn't even react to Ran attack.

Both Tsubaki and Lynd we the next two to attack and they did it in the same manner as Ran. After using a vertical the unleash a short series of slash and stabs at the base of the boss's neck. These attacks broke through the boss's tough hide but only just, the boss still wasn't phased by their attack.

This didn't make either Diavel or Heathcliff hesitate as they both ran at the boss. They both jumped vertically to get to attack the boss's neck but because of their heavy armor and shields they weren't able to get into it's reach for long. But with the little time they had to attack the boss both of the shield users pulled of a couple of slashes.

Once they both hit the ground Diavel realized that he honor of being that player that had the aggro as he had jumped a little bit after Heathcliff. Not a second after he raised and readied his shield, the boss slammed one of it's scythe's against Diavel's shield. The pure power behind the attack would have made most other players fly across the room but Diavel wasn't like the other players, his feet stayed firmly on the ground.

But that wasn't without trouble, Diavel could feel his resistance and power dwindling as he continued to push against the boss's against scythe. Then he saw something running up the boss's leg, Ran. In only a couple of milliseconds did he realize that he just had to hold off the boss until Ran finished whatever she was doing. That was better said than done however since immediately after realizing that his shield was hit with the other scythe.

Diavel was barely able to keep his feet on the ground after the second scythe hit his shield but once it did Diavel could tell that his strength was about to fail him. WIth all of his remaining strength, which wasn't much, Diavel rammed his sword into the boss's left scythe. Unlucky for him, the scythe was literally as hard as steel and his attack didn't do anything. The last of his strength was used in an unsuccessful attack.

Lucky for him, he wasn't the only player that could attack the boss's scythe's, both Tsubaki and Heathcliff were around to hit the scythes away and redirect their aggro to themselves. Diavel looked up to see that each of them had half of the boss's aggro making it so one scythe was attacking each of them.

Heathcliff's scythe attacked almost immediately and identical to the way Diavel was attack, But instead of being attacked from the side he was being attack from the top. The boss was pushing down on Heathcliff's shield.

Closer to him and on his left was Tsubaki, who was making a great deal of close calls when dodging the boss's large scythe. Diavel looked up towards the boss's head and saw that Ran was almost to the boss's back. If Diavel was correct in where she was going to attack she wouldn't have to go much further.

Diavel looked back to where Tsubaki was to see her off her feet and collapsed on the ground. He hadn't seen why are how Tsubaki was knocked off her feet but that didn't even stop or hesitate for even a fraction of a second.

Using strength that he didn't even know he had left in him he quickly stood up with his shield in his left hand. Not even taking a moment to catch a much needed breath, Diavel ran as fast as his tired body could muster. Thankfully that was more than enough as Tsubaki hadn't been that far away from him.

Diavel rushed in front of her to block the incoming scythe. More than likely Diavel was going to get blown away and lose some HP and he knew this. But he would rather him get hurt then have a teenager such as Tsubaki die. Diavel braced himself for the attack he had predict and seen coming at him and Tsubaki but he never felt it.

Instead Diavel watched as Ran who was at the bottom boss of the neck make thirteen slashes and thrust at the boss's neck. Diavel had seen the display Ran had shown only once previously and the one who did it was no longer alive. The only difference was he had used a sword skill, Ran had not. Once her last attack went through the boss's neck the boss shattered and Ran fell to the ground with a loud thud.

"Ouch, that hurt." Ran said as she stood up after her long fall. She didn't even bother to look up at the congrats banner that had just appeared instead she opened the last attack bonus and materialized it. She only had time to read the name for only a second but she did get a chance to. It's name was, Light of the Kami.

The sword was rather simple only really having one spot of significant design, that being the hilt. The hilt protruded out on both sides to make about a finger long guard on both sides. The guard as perpendicular to the sword and in the middle it had sun pendant on both sides. But what really caught Ran's eye was the blade itself, it looked almost identical to Tsubaki's.

"Hey Tsubaki, got you the Xiphos sword you wanted." Ran stated as she raised the sword up to get a better look at it. Tsubaki ran up to her a looked at the sword for a couple of moments before Ran gave it to her.

"Thanks." Tsubaki said in a cheerful manner as she took the sword and then hugged Ran. As soon as her arm was around Ran, Tsubaki realized that it had been quite a while she was the one doing the hugging usually people hugged her, she didn't really hug people. She gave Ran to mechanical pats on the back before putting some distance between her and her friend.

"Doubt worry, we'll work on that." Ran said as she smiled from ear to ear.

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Hope you all enjoyed this chapter!

If you have any questions or concerns feel free to ask!

Next Chapters will be up in a week.

Have a great week!

-Kirk


	90. Installation

April 22, 2023

-Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Argo, Klein, Lynd, Godfree, Heathcliff, Kibaou, Ran, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

"Hello everyone and thank you all for coming!" Diavel yelled as he thanked all of the players. He was standing in front of just over three fourths of one hundred players, almost thirty more players than they usually had in a boss battle. But that for good reason as this boss battle was the twenty fifth one, after this one was finished they would be one quarter of the way done.

Since they had the extra players they couldn't meet at their usual place on floor ten. Though the turnout was huge they had also done something else in this information meeting. Anyone who was going to attend the boss battle would first have to be present at the info meeting. There was always a small select few of players who didn't go to the meeting and Diavel was okay with it.

Most players who hadn't been on the front lines for to long would have expected that beaters were the ones that didn't attend, and they couldn't be more wrong. In fact most of the beaters that were left on the front line gathered the information that would be presented and the select few that didn't were always at the meetings.

The funny part was that people who were the biggest offenders to skipping the meetings were the complete opposite of the beaters. The most often offenders of skipping meets was the Army, to be more specific his former comrade, Kibaou. Saffi in fact was quite good at getting all her players to the meetings. Sure there had been one time when one of her subordinates didn't come but Diavel had done the same so he wasn't one judge Saffi.

Diavel examined the crowd as they all quieted down. There was six beaters that were could tell, out of the six only one hadn't been on the scouting mission. He wasn't as strong as the rest of the beaters and Diavel expected that he would join a guild soon, he was probably waiting for the right one to appear.

Eight members of the ten were present from Fuurinkazan were present. Diavel hadn't personally checked there levels yet he was more than sure that the had all met the requirement. Fuurinkazan had made a name of itself over the past fifteen floors, they were the most reliable small guild on the front lines.

Diavel had brought ten of his strongest members as did his partner Lynd. Each of his members had at least been in one raid if not more, his most seasoned one had been in twenty different raids which was quite an impressive feat. Out of the twenty four raids to come before one of them had soloed, leaving only twenty three. Two of them they had to take offensive measures during the scouting missions which left with twenty one raids that everyone had the chance to participate. That means that Diavel's subordinate had only missed one raid, which was an impressive feat.

Heathcliff's guild, The Blood Oath had brought eight members including Heathcliff. Over the last couple of raids Heathcliff's small guild had proved to be one of the best. Each member was one of the strongest in the raid and they didn't complain. In the twenty third boss battle they had to hold of the boss for a while, while they came up with an attack strategy. They held off the boss for five straight minutes before they needed back up.

Their was two other smaller guilds that were participating, they each had six members respectively. They weren't as strong as the notable guilds like Fuurinkazan and The Blood Oath but still were quite strong. Even the strongest of guilds need support and that's what they were. Usually their role was to provide the stronger parties with more help, though they weren't as strong or smart. Their willpower and hard working is more than enough to make up their level gap.

The rest of the players all belonged to one respective guild, Aincrad Liberation Force more commonly referred to as the Army. If it was Diavel's choice he wouldn't have used as many players from the Army as they were going to use but Kibaou insisted. Though he was relatively good with staying strong against begging, this time he wasn't. With the combined pressure of running a guild and preparing this boss battle, he gave in.

The Army had no apparent defining factors throughout its players. They weren't the smartest or strongest and the most hard working, they were just kind of there. With the exception of Saffi's party the Army wasn't really up to par with the rest of the front lines but Diavel couldn't just kick them out. They had provided much need support in the first ten boss battles and even some after that, and that was one of the few things that kept Kibaou in the boss raids.

Once all of the players quieted down he started to speak. "Thank you again for coming, I have brought you all here to inform you of what were are going to be facing in the upcoming boss raid." Diavel stated as stood tall with his chin up high. Definitely showing the rest of the players that he was a confident leader.

"Now this is going to be one of the hardest if not the hardest boss battle to date, Kayaba didn't let up on this one as it combines some of the power from the other bosses. If you were in boss raids five, eleventh, and twenty first you will have some experience with this boss." Diavel stated. "In this boss battle there are four targets, floor bosses five, eleventh and twenty one are all in this boss battle." Diavel said as he looked around to all of the players.

Most of the newer ones were in disbelief at this fact because it had never been down in another boss battle before. Some of the bosses had tiny subordinates that you could easily keep at bay but full fledged bosses. The veterans were still in shock but it was less apparent. Since in each boss battle they had to be prepared for the unexpected this didn't startle them that much. What startled them was the fact that the boss still probably had an ace up its sleeve.

"Also in addition to that each one is as strong as the strongest, so it's as if we are facing three floor bosses from floor twenty one and also there is another boss too." Diavel said as his stature didn't wavered one bit. He had seen the bosses up front and each of them were incredible powerful but the last was even stronger than the three combined.

"The new boss that we will be fighting is named, Marang, Artificer of the Elements. She looks like a teenage girl and has the height of one too but her power is unlike anything we have seen before." Diavel stated, once he end quickly took a silent breath. "She has the ability to control the elements Ice, Mud, and Clay. The boss room is circular and is divided up into three equal parts each with the floor of one of the elements she can control." Diavel said in single breath, he didn't let the other players notice he was out of breath but he definitely was, but yet he kept on speaking.

"Among what she had shown us in our scouting mission is that she can even create small golems from the elements, they won't be as powerful the others but they can easily hold their own against one or two players." Diavel stated. "She can also throw many different types of projectiles and create pieces of armor and weaponry." Diavel added on.

"Now I have given all the information about parties to your guild leader's, Solo players, Argo has your info." Diavel said as he looked over to Argo. "I would also like to call Heathcliff to the podium, he talk about our strategy among other things." Diavel stated as he walked the stage and gave to possible the strongest shield user besides himself.

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Hey, sorry for that latish upload, life gets in the way

If you have any questions or concerns please, feel free to ask!

This is going to be the start of the twenty fifth boss battle which is going to be quite a long one.

The next chapter will be posted momentarily!

-Kirk


	91. Investigate

April 23, 2023

-Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Argo, Klein, Lynd, Godfree, Heathcliff, Kibaou, Ran, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

"If I die here, please make it out." Ran said as she looked solemnly towards the boss room door that Heathcliff and Diavel had just opened.

"Your not going-" Tsubaki started to speak but got cut off by Ran.

"I might, and if I do I don't want her to be alone, You and I are all she has left." Ran stated as she looked over to Tsubaki. Tsubaki didn't say anything but she had nodded and that was more than enough for Ran. "Good luck." Ran said as she watched the boss room doors finally open fully.

"You too." Tsubaki said as she readied her sword. They were to go into the boss room and from what she and Ran could see nothing had changed since their last visit. Diavel was shouting commands but Tsubaki didn't listen to hard. The commands were usually more of a reminder than actually commands, and even without that she knew all of the attack formations as she was one of the player that came up with them.

Their opening attack formation was simple enough, it was mainly to get all of the parties into the boss room safely. They would send four parties to both the mud and clay golems, the two closest to the door and all the other players would safely get inside. Once this was done however, one party from each golem would join up with the rest of the players. The seven remaining parties would face up against the ice golem and Marang herself.

It went as expected but once they got to where Marang was she retreated back to the ice golem. Once she back to her golem she jumped on top of it and started to command it from there. She had done this once during their scouting mission but last she jumped on top of the clay instead. After about five minutes of fighting it last time she was able to tell that the golem didn't get any stronger but it did pose significant threat nonetheless.

While Marang was on top of one of the golems she acted as its brain. The golem had faster reaction time while also being able to use many different attacks. With Marang on top of it, the golem would be able to manipulate its size and shape more than it usually can. It usual can change the shape of it's arms and forearms to resemble certain melee weapons but with Marang aiding it can do much more than that.

The most notable difference was that it was able throw parts of it's body at you then regenerate those parts back. Plus it is able to regenerate when it is standing on the element that is the same as itself. But it wasn't using any of those abilities at the current moment, it was growing in size, it had already hit fifteen meters and it was still growing.

Tsubaki looked over to Diavel and he gave her nod, that was all she needed to take the reins. "Squad A attack head on, J and K provide additional support, L and M circle around and encircle it!" Tsubaki yelled as she waited for the rest of her party to reconvene. Once the did however she didn't take a second to wait before she took off.

Ran was with as she was just as fast as Tsubaki, and the rest of their party was not too far behind. Being in the A squad their squad was the strongest out of any of the parties but unlike in the other raids the parties were made with more care. The parties were more equal to each other as they were made with the people inside the in mind.

Most of the parties were made from people in the same guild but some guilds didn't have exactly a multiple of six so some guilds had to combine to make parties. Instead of parties being organized by power, they were organized by compatibility. For example the army wouldn't wouldn't be but in the same party as a solo player because of their on going dislike of them. Thus in this battle most of the parties were fairly even in power level, which made it easier for Tsubaki to command.

Once they reached Marang and the ice golem, Diavel jumped in front of Tsubaki to block one of the golem's attacks. Without even taking the time to thank Diavel, Tsubaki used a vertical jump to get to the top of the ice golem, except for the fact she was she was a couple of meters in front of it. She was going to use one of her sword skill to propel herself into the golem but Marang stopped her.

Marang saw Tsubaki attempt to hit her golem and immediately started to take action. Her first response was to dramatically shrink the ice golem. Once she did she looked up to see that Tsubaki was falling fast at her. Marang immediately counter her by materializing a clay rock out of thin air then threw it at Tsubaki.

Tsubaki saw this and maneuvered her body to dodge it but it had only missed her by a mere meter. Tsubaki doubted that she would get that lucky again still she persevered and continued her attack. Or at least she would have if she had enough time to dodge the icicle heading straight for her head.

In an attempt to dodge the icicle, Tsubaki spun out of the way in mid air. She wasn't expecting this to be that effective, all that she had wanted it to do was to make it so her head wouldn't be impaled. And that it did Instead of her head getting impaled her foot did. This however made her attack not do anything to Marang at all.

As Tsubaki hit the ground she took note of how much health she had lost, she had almost lost two thirds of her HP. Tsubaki reached down to her right foot and pulled out the icicle that had lodged itself into her foot and threw it off to the side. She noticed as she stood up Ran was about to do the same thing as her, she was running at the boss completely by herself.

Ran ran at the boss but unlike Tsubaki she actually got closer to the boss before she jumped up. In fact as she jumped up she left her sword to slide across the ice golem, though it didn't do any damage really. Once she got up to where Marang she tried launch attack but Marang started before her.

Marang materialize two icicles then shot at Ran who cut them both in half. Ran did an air jump to get directly above Marang and her ice golem. This didn't launch Ran too far above Marang as they were just out of arm's reach of each other. Once Ran was directly above Marang she launch a vertical at her which Marang materialized a clay slab to block her.

Ran sliced right through the clay slab without much resistance but the slay did effectively keep Ran from hitting her. As soon as Ran saw Marang again she didn't see her for more than a couple of seconds as Marang quickly materialized about a liter of mud. Once her slab was destroyed, she immediately spayed Ran with a liter of mud which took out her eye sight.

In an attempt not to die she used a sonic jump to speed away from Marang and her ice golem while also clearing her face of mud. Before Ran had time to brace for impact an icicle pierced through her left foot. After about a couple of seconds she hit the ground with a loud thud. Ran looked up to her to see that Tsubaki was standing right next her.

"We're going to need more strategy, she's more adaptable than we gave her credit for." Tsubaki stated as she gave her hand to Ran to help her up.

"We need more strategy." Ran stated once she got on her feet.

"Just give me some time, I can come up with something." Tsubaki stated as she looked up to the boss.

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Who do you think is going to get the last attack bonus? I would like to hear your predictions.

Thank you to all who have followed, favorited, and reviewed!

Next chapters will be out in a week

Have a wonderfully week!

-Kirk


	92. Imposition

April 23, 2023

-Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Argo, Klein, Lynd, Godfree, Heathcliff, Kibaou, Ran, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

"Asuna!" Diavel shouts as he tries to get her attention, which he almost immediately did. "You take control of squads H through M, we're going to figure out a more effective way to take this one down." Diavel said as he turned around and ran back to the rest of his squad. Asuna turned to face Marang and her ice golem once again but this time with more determination. If she was going to command six squads she had to show courage and bravery.

"H and I squads combine and slowly attack the front, Not enough to draw aggro just to keep it the same place. J and K attempt to draw aggro, if you do bring it towards H and I. L and M follow me as we circle around the boss." Asuna stated as she ran towards her squad. She was in squad L originally so she would stay with people she would usually which would follow her without any contemplation.

But the same would not be same for squad M as they were apart of the army. Asuna didn't know anyone of them personally as they weren't highly regarded in the front lines as the best of players. In fact she didn't even know there names. She was sure that they were at least capable players as there was no way they would be able to get into the raid without being so.

Asuna and the rest of her squad went over a joined up with squad M and as she did she looked back to the other squads she had under her command. They weren't doing to hot but they were surviving nonetheless. Then she looked up to the boss and saw the they had caught Marang's aggro while the other squads had the ice golems.

This was in fact what Asuna had intended to happen, to separate the aggro between to separate groups of players. The first four squads were supposed to gain the ice golem's aggro as it aggro was mostly based on damage output. Marang's aggro was much more sophisticated as it had went to the smaller group, which usually deemed less of a threat.

Marang's aggro instead of being based off of damage it was based off of disruption. Most of their large plans would not come to formation if Marang had anything to say about it. She stopped any group separation and didn't allow anyone of their squads to go uncheck. So while H through K squads were being checked by her ice golem, she personally checked L and M. Though it was part of Asuna's plans she personally hoped that one of the tanks would get the aggro not herself.

But that is no way for a leader to think, she has to be bold, she has to inspire, and she has lead them to victory. Asuna stood up tall while her chin held up high. She had to present herself as a strong independent woman if she wanted her adversaries to respect her. At least that was what her mother had taught her.

Asuna raised her sword and cut down one of the clay spears that had been head directly for her. She looked back at the rest of her squad and she could tell that they needed new commands as their last ones were just throated. Quick and decisive is what she needed to be while also being smart. She knew she could do it because if she didn't then who would?

"Squad M slowly push forward, don't be too bold but don't hesitate either." Asuna stated as continued not to break eye contact with Marang. "Squad L provide cover but don't do too much damage to the golem we don't it's aggro." Asuna stated as she ran up to Godfree, who was apart of her squad.

"Take care of the little things if I am not fast enough, you be my second as of right now." Asuna stated to Godfree once she reached him.

"Okay… May I ask what you are planning to do?" Godfree asked in a formal way even though they were in the middle of a war zone.

"I would rather be up there fighting with them then staying back and watching." Asuna stated as she ran up to the other players in her squad. Once she got in front of the rest of the players she saw a clay person start to take shape. She started to look at it more closely as it started to take on more characteristics until she was able to notice who it was. Without a single shred of doubt in her mind she knew who it was a mirror image, it was of herself.

Asuna got into her stance and the clay replicate did the same, in fact their stances were identical. Though Asuna didn't move at all, she was thinking instead. Her usual head on assault she could parry easily and if it was parried then she would be at a disadvantage, which was not something she wanted. She would needed to do something unexpected, something that she hadn't done before with that said it's easier said than done.

"Godfree, continue attacking, I'll take care of this one." Asuna stated with even breaking her stance for a moment. She had a plan, maybe not a very good one but nevertheless she had a plan. Asuna pulled her right hand full and until it was behind her head. Her left arm was extended out fully in front of her. This wasn't her usual stance but she had been training it for almost eight floors know.

She inhaled and exhaled deeply, it was now or never. Asuna took as fast as she had ever done before but this wouldn't net her the usual advantage as her opponent could go just as fast. Without even a second of delay the clay replica took at top speed at Asuna, posed to strike. To the untrained eye it would look as though she also posed to strike but she had a different plan.

Once she was close enough to the mirror image of herself she jumped over it and landed just a meters behind it. Asuna immediately spun around and launch a large vertical but to no prevail. As Asuna had expected, her opponent was not only fast enough to turn around but it also very successfully blocked her attack. But this was all part of Asuna's plan, she knew it wouldn't work because she had thought of it.

If she can come up with a plan the the replica could probably come up with on also and that was the last thing that she needed. Her plan had worked perfectly since her plan wasn't about dealing damage or getting rid of the replica, it was about getting behind the replica because now she could run at Marang and the ice golem without the clay player in her way.

Which she did, as soon as she back away from her vertical she turned around and sprinted directly at the boss. Without even turning around she could tell that the replica was right behind, one slip up and she would get hurt badly if not killed. But that was no way to think, it wouldn't happen because she could make it not happen.

Once she got close enough to the ice golem to attack, she used one of her vertical jump skills to fly into the air. As she had expected her replica followed in suit but was now quiet a ways behind her. Which is what she had wanted, if the replica was directly behind her it wouldn't work. After deflecting one of the icicles that Marang had shot at her Asuna redirected her weight and started to fall back to the ground.

But in her path was the replica and if their was one thing she had learned from being a rapier user it was that your defense was lackluster at best. As she fell Asuna activated a running sword skill which was one of the types of sword skills she used. Most of them were one strike skills but they had a different aspect to them.

They would give you a speed boost making you accelerate towards your target at pretty fast speeds which is what Asuna had wanted. Though she had faced off against people who had faster reaction times than hers, Asuna's reaction time was still pretty fast and that trait seemed to carry over to her replica.

The speed boost plus Asuna's already fast speed plus gravity pulled down on Asuna faster than she had ever felt before. Though she was used to going at fast but her usual speeds were nothing compared to this. Her replica tried to avoid her attack but it didn't go over well as Asuna's sword had obliterated the replica's left leg.

Asuna was barely able to safely land on the ground but she did and once she did she looked up to see what had become of her replica. It shattered into millions of blue shards after the attack, so either if it took attack it immediately died or Asuna just one shot the mirror image of herself.

But that wasn't all that Asuna had seen she also saw who the ice golem was attacking and she didn't like it. They were attacking the two squads she had left in the command of Godfree, the squads that she specifically didn't want to get targeted.

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Hope you all enjoyed this chapter!

If you have any questions or concerns feel free to voice them.

Next chapter will be up in a few.

Have a great day

-Kirk


	93. Instruction

April 23, 2023

-Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Argo, Klein, Lynd, Godfree, Heathcliff, Kibaou, Ran, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

Without even thinking for a second Asuna ran at the ice golem, who was just over a couple meters away from her. Once she was within attacking distance she launched one of her linears point blank at the boss. It did not as much as Asuna would've hope for since the golem's defense were really high but it did a decent amount. However it was not enough to gain the attention of the ice golem.

Asuna looked back over to squads L and M, the two squads she had placed under Godfree's care. Though she didn't have any doubts about Godfree's improvisation skills it couldn't hurt to check. They were being overwhelmed by the joint forces of Marang and her ice golem. Asuna doubt they could last forever without someone dying or getting seriously hurt. But they were doing relatively good for the time being, they didn't need to be assisted right away.

This helped out Asuna immensely as she had time to think now, instead of going in without an idea. She had to alleviate some of the pressure off of squads L and M, and the best way to that was to change the aggro. Asuna didn't particularly like this fact since she couldn't do it by herself, she had already tried and failed at that. There was no doubt in Asuna's mind about who she was going to execute her plan.

"Squads J through K at head on, hold nothing back you have to take back the aggro!" Asuna yelled at the squads. She continued to watch them even after the last word had left her mouth, it was important that they do what she wanted them to as if they didn't there might be some casualties. When Asuna saw that they were doing about what she had wanted them to, Asuna looked back over to to the other two squads.

They weren't doing bad but she could tell that at least two of the players had already sustained heavy amounts of damage. Asuna knew she needed to do something and fast but she was just too far away from them to help them physically. She need to take down the boss or at least slow it down.

"Squads L and M play conservatively, help is on it's way!" Asuna yelled as she readied her sword once again. Asuna looked up towards where she had seen Marang last and thankfully she was still there. Marang was still on top of her ice golem and she was currently attacking squads L and M. Though after Asuna's couple of seconds of looking at her it looked as though she wasn't going all out.

Since the two squads were in a dire situation Asuna didn't spend to long looking at her enemy before running at it with all of her strength and commitment. If there was one thing that Asuna's mother had taught her right was how to do things right the first time. She needed to be bold and put a hundred and ten percent of her commitment into it. If she was thinking of anything besides that when doing she wouldn't be doing right.

Asuna quickly readied her sword and sprinted towards the golem. She wasn't that far away from the ice golem as she had just attacked it a couple of moments ago. After a couple of seconds she reached the ice golem and then jumped on the golem's leg and started to run up it. As soon as she started to run up it she could tell the golem was changing rapidly or at least it's texture was.

When she started to run on the golem it's texture was hard and rough, which made it incredible easy to grip on to. Marang had probably made it that way so it was easier for her to stay on but now that Asuna was running up she had changed the texture. It was now incredibly slippery like the ice cubes she would put into her drinks. Asuna was having a hard to getting a foot down to maintain her grip on the golem. After a couple more paces Asuna lost her footing and fell down to the ground.

Asuna landing on the ground with both feet and without even staying on the ground she activated on of her vertically jumping skills. To be precise she activated the only one she had, sonic jump. This was no doubt the strongest vertically jumping skill in the first twenty five floors as almost every player on the front line on the front line has it. This one in particular wasn't the one that sent the highest up it could technically.

Sonic jump had three jumps that you could use before it was completely depleted. Though how far the jumps could get you depend on other numbers such as weight, Asuna's could get her about ten meters into the air. With three indispensable jumps you could use them to maneuver your course if necessary, which is what made sonic jump the best. It could be used reactionarily and it was a one shot deal it has multiple uses.

With her first sonic jump on the raid she got up to the golem's right arm and once she landed on it she didn't take any time and used it as a jumping platform. She instinctively used another sonic jump as she doubted that she would be able to get up high enough without it. Her second sonic jump put her just over 5 meters directly above Marang and her ice golem.

As expected Marang noticed what Asuna was trying to do and started to attempt to stop her. Marang materialized a giant clay boulder and shot it up at Asuna. Though it was going to hurt Asuna it was sure to buy Marang some time albeit not very much. All Asuna did to destroy the clay boulder was activate one of her many linears and let it rip right into the boulder.

Though it wasn't without repercussions as clay wasn't the easiest material to break. Asuna could feel the crack start to form in her blade but she couldn't stop what she was doing at the moment, she was already way too invested. Asuna continued to press on even though she knew that her sword may break at any moment.

Seeing that Asuna was still hellbent on attack her Marang jumped off of her ice golem and onto the ground before Asuna could reach her. Once she landed on the ground she immediately summoned two ice wolves. They were about the size and shape of an average of a real world wolf but they were completely made of ice.

Asuna didn't take one second to jump down to the ground and pursue after Marang. Once she got to the floor from on top the golem's head she took off sprinting at Maran who was not too far away. But Marang had already predicted this and she left her two wolves behind to stop Asuna in her tracks.

This didn't phase Asuna one bit, she had already faced a mirror image of herself, the two wolves were just a bump in the road. They came at Asuna one after the other which was fine with Asuna, she would rather deal with one at a time then two. The first one was knocked off to the side with a well placed horizontal and the second didn't even get to feel Asuna's nearly broken blade as Asuna just jumped over it.

With the wolves behind her their was nothing between her and Marang but just a couple meters. Asuna closed this distance relatively fast but stopped once she was almost within attacking distance as Marang had deployed some counter measures. Asuna knew that she couldn't just rush in hotheaded, that would get her killed but hesitating too much would also get her killed. She brought her sword into a defensive position and waited for Marang to attack.

Marang had materialized an ice staff that looked different from the rest of her ice based objects. It was a lot less see through and it didn't seem as though it would melt. It was the type of ice you would see on top of a lake as the rest of her ice looked as if it had came out of a freezer. The ice staff that she had materialized was nothing like Asuna had ever seen before. On one end it had a spear head and the other end was just a long thin spike almost like her own rapier. Marang was holding it in the middle, waiting for Asuna to attack.

As Asuna examined her enemy she couldn't help but feel overwhelmed. Asuna knew that Marang was probably above her level of skill since she was a boss. But this didn't stop Asuna as if she stop to the AI on floor twenty five what would she do one floor fifty, seventy five, or one hundred. Asuna knew that she couldn't defeat Marang in her current state but that didn't mean she was going to flew from this duel. No, she was going to give one hundred and ten percent of her effort to win it. If it that was even possible

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The staff is an exact replica of the ice queen's staff from Narnia, which Asuna has never seen before therefore, she has never watched Narnia.

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Thank you to all who have followed, favorited, and reviewed.

Next chapters will be up in a week

-Kirk


	94. Imminent

April 23, 2023

-Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Argo, Klein, Lynd, Godfree, Heathcliff, Kibaou, Ran, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

Asuna stood still in her defensive stance while she watched her opponent do the same, neither of them wanted to be the first attack. That was until Asuna heard a scream in the background followed by the unforgettable sound of a player exploding. The first player death and Asuna wasn't able to do anything. Judging by how much she heard it she would say it was from one of her squads. This only brought one thought to her mind, she needed to help and now.

But she doubted that Marang would just let her run past and help out, no Asuna would have to over power or out smart Marang into let her past. Asuna wasn't the smartest nor the strongest player in the raid group but she was one of the best players in the raid couldn't falter if she wanted to be able to save others.

Asuna immediately started to sprint at Marang after she heard the sound of a player death. Every second would count and she couldn't let them go to waste. Asuna could feel the air resistance push against her hair and make it flow behind her. It felt good. But that wasn't why she was sprinting, she wasn't so that no one would have to experience the feeling of death.

That is the reason that she was still fighting on the front lines. To limit the amount of people who will have to go the experience of losing someone close to them. Asuna had thankfully never experienced someone close to her die but she knew that she would eventually, especially with her being inside the death game. She couldn't fathom what they were going through but she knew she could at least help.

Once she got close enough to Marang that her last sonic jump would make her go up and over the boss she activated it. It would allow Asuna to be a couple meters above Marang since she made the jump go diagonal but this would hopefully be enough. And it would've been if Marang wouldn't have done anything but alas Marang did do something and it stopped Asuna in her tracks.

Marang made a giant ice pillar come out of the icy floor that they had been standing on. It. was wide enough that Asuna couldn't maneuvered herself around it and the same was for it's height the only thing she could is make it so she didn't slam head first against. Asuna redistributed her weight so that her feet would be the part her body that would take the impact. She bent her knees and waited for her to hit the pillar and once she did she jumped off and fell back down to the ground with a loud thud. She hit the ground with enough force that the ice floor they had been fighting cracked a bit.

With that said however she hit the ground on her to feet and was able to sprint once again at Marang with almost no delay time from when she started to sprint from when she landed on the ground. Unluckily for Asuna was that her last assault had resulted in nothing other than her losing her last sonic jump. She had landed in nearly the same place she took off from and hadn't lost any health.

Seeing that Asuna was once again sprinting at her she materialized a clay rock and shot it at Asuna. Her clay was more durable than ice but it wasn't as fast. Asuna would have rather had a icicle thrown at her but the clay rock was easy enough to get passed. She thoughtless swung her sword into the clay rock, breaking it into two. But Asuna had forgotten one crual fact, her sword was on the last legs of its journey.

This didn't stop Asuna however, it had made Asuna run even faster at Marang. She needed to end it soon because if she didn't she would most likely die. And that was not an option for her. Asuna didn't even think about turning around or slowing down to change out her sword, no she went full steam ahead. She had reached Marang within a few seconds and once she did she activated one of her linears.

Marang easily countered each of her four strikes and then swung her staff at Asuna. In a split second reaction Asuna twirled her sword back around and tried to deflected Marang's staff. However she was not so lucky as once her rapier slammed into Marang's staff it broke into a million tiny blue shards.

This wouldn't kill Asuna, she wouldn't be brought down by her weapon breaking. If that happened then she couldn't call herself a beater. Though at one moment she had completely hated the name but it started to grow on her. She could see why Kirito was one, besides the fact of it having a nice ring. A beater is someone who brings together the players of Aincrad, at least that was Asuna's definition. And if she died from something so simple then others would follow and she couldn't have that.

Using the blue shards as a fog Asuna jumped then redistributed her weight so that she would go backwards. Once she landed on the ground she started to turn around but she caught a hint of light reflecting in the cloud of blue shards that was unlike the rest. And it was moving towards her.

It didn't take Asuna any time at all to figure out what it was. It was Marang's ice staff and it was moving fast than she could avoid, it was all she could do to lift her arms and block Marang's flurry of attacks. They weren't exactly the most accurate strikes but they still hit Asuna with about fifty percent accuracy. Not a single one made it passed her arms which were crossed across her chest. The didn't do a significant amount damage but they did transfer a significant message; she needed to get away and fast.

And Asuna got that but she didn't she turn around and sprint away, no that would get her killed. But so would basically everything else she could try. She had to be both smart and fast, there was no room for hesitation or error. This was her first and only chance and she needed to make she it count.

As soon as she saw Marang's staff go back into somewhat of a defensive position, she attacked her with nothing but her two fist. She didn't even have the unarmed skills equipped that she had gotten on floor two. She felt like an idiot for the fact the she hadn't checked the durability on her sword before the boss battle. But know wasn't the time for regret, it was the time for action.

Asuna grabbed Marang's staff and pushed it out of the way. There was no way in hell Asuna had a chance to disarm Marang but pushing the spear out of her way was a different story. After Asuna pushed the spear out of her way she threw a punch at Marang's face. Her punch was backed up with all the life force she had left as if it wasn't it would lead to her death.

Luckily her punch was enough to push back Marang but it did nearly nothing in the way of damage. Asuna immediately turned around and started to sprint, she needed to get away and now, there was no way she could survive while being within mere footsteps. But her running away wasn't go to lead her to a probable way to stay alive.

Her best chance of survival was cut short as soon as felt a sharp staff slam into her side and flew a couple meters away and straight into the icy floor. Asuna didn't have much time to feel the pungent jolt to her side as her slamming face first into the icy floor hurt much more. All Asuna could see was her health bar drop into the yellow and the very slowly into the red. It stopped about halfway through the red.

Her loss of health didn't stop Asuna from getting up from the ground and jumping to her feet but what she saw after she jumped up definitely made her stop.

Asuna watched as Marang slammed the pointy end of her staff into the ground. Her spear started to glow and once it did for a couple of seconds the three large golems all started to glow also. Or should Asuna saw to of the large golems started to glow as the ice one was nothing but a heap of ice clumped on the ground. This however didn't stop it from glowing.

Once all of the golems were glowing, Marang pulled her spear out of the ground and pointed it up towards the sky. It started glow even more brighter but Asuna's attention wasn't on Marang anymore, it was on the golems.

All three of golems we transforming into a creature of sorts. Asuna knew what two other them were going to transform into but she didn't know what the clay one was going to transform into. During the raid battle with that the beat ridiculously fast, so fast in fact that they never saw it transform. The ice golem transformed into a Phoenix, The mud golem transformed in a snake, and The clay golem transformed into a tiger.

Asuna looked back towards Marang and caught a glimpse of her health bar, it was nearly full. Asuna had been the only player thus far to have actually damaged the Artificer, most of the damage had been done to her golems. This made only one thought flow through Asuna's head.

They weren't anywhere near finishing this boss battle and she had just lost her primary weapon and most of her health. She was going to have a hell of time surviving this boss battle but she knew she would as the worst for her was hopefully over.

XXXX

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter!

If you have any questions feel free to ask!

Thank you to all who have followed, favorited, and reviewed.

Next chapter will be up momentarily.

-Kirk


	95. Identify

April 23, 2023

-Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Argo, Klein, Lynd, Godfree, Heathcliff, Kibaou, Ran, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

"All squads gather in the middle and wait for further instruction!" Diavel shouted as he regrouped with the rest of his squad. They had just split up to take down the ice golem swiftly and hastily while Marang was occupied with Asuna. Asuna wasn't bait or a distraction she was simply already doing something that needed to be done. Plus Diavel wasn't just going to let her die, he made she that Saffi's squad would step in if necessary. Though he did say that they probably wouldn't have to.

Thanks to Asuna, Marang off of the ice golem it could no longer slowly regenerate its health, which is one of the few things that made this boss so tendious. Also without Marang aiding with it's combat, it could no longer do some of the more complex attacks that made it so devastating and powerful. Once they used their overwhelming numbers and power to take down the golem. After they did this they were going to help Asuna with Marang but this was cut short as it triggered Marang to activate one of her trump cards.

Tsubaki had theorized that the golems would transform during the raid but she just didn't know when. This had immediately ticked her mind that once they took out one of the golems they all would transform into a stronger version of themselves. Tsubaki doubted that Marang could master feat like this without ramifications, even if she was just an AI.

Though she was a boss and the bosses are meant to be incredibly hard but Kayaba had a way of balancing the bosses. It made the bosses more eventful as when they had a battle animation such as the one Tsubaki had just witnessed, they would have their attack patterns change. And in doing this, most of the bosses took on a different weakness, which Tsubaki or Ran had to find out.

During their battle with the Protector of the Forest they had decided not to use the fire pouch that Saffi had in the beginning of the fight in fear of it developing a counter against it. They had unfortunately lost a player due to this precaution and the same thing happened in this battle to.

One of the lower level Army members had died. Tsubaki never even talked to him but she had spent a good amount of time observing the newer Army members due to one of Diavel's requests. The Army wasn't really known for having the most savory of individuals quite the opposite in fact, so Diavel wanted her to keep an eye on them.

Luckily none of them were overly kill happy though Tsubaki was sure that one of would kill Kirito if he ever saw him, she didn't deem that an issue as he wasn't at this boss raid or any of the recent ones. The other players mostly had a disgusted for beaters and really any player that was stronger than them though they were able to control and hide their disgusted relatively well.

Tsubaki didn't ever catch that particular player's name but that didn't she didn't have good idea of who that player was. From what she could tell he was higher level than most of the other Army members. This was due to his bold and reckless nature, he was always the first one to attack and the last one to fall back. He had been in three other boss battles from what Tsubaki could remember.

Tsubaki gripped her Xiphos, her job was to figure out a counter attack against the ice phoenix. Both the tiger and Marang would have four squads against them. They would be order to be more defensive and reserved. They weren't there to take out the boss but to stall the boss. The fact was with Ran dealing with snake and with Tsubaki dealing with the phoenix since no one else could counter them as fast as they could.

In the twenty first boss battle the faced the ice golem and that boss was relatively successful. Besides the fact that no one died and no one really ever got into a dangerous position besides her, it was relatively fast anyways. Tsubaki and Ran had taken down the boss in one fell swoop after it transformed.

But Tsubaki doubted that would work this time as it probably was stronger than last time. However Tsubaki knew that it would still have far superior ranged attack rather than its closed ranged attack. Tsubaki had to find a way to get up to her flying adversary. Tsubaki has had harder tasks both in the real world and in the virtual but she didn't have as much time as she would hope to.

Tsubaki ran to get closer to the boss but not attack it. She needed to observe it before she attacked it. Her strongest skill was her observation though it was something that she thought had to get better at since she hadn't been using it for long. Tsubaki looked up and didn't let her eyes even blink while she observed the boss and the two squads fighting against it.

The two squads weren't doing much of anything but they also weren't getting hurt so Tsubaki was fine with not intervening for a bit. The phoenix was using three different skills against the two squads. The first one was relatively simple as it was also the one it used most frequently. It used one of it's many feathers and shot them down at the had nearly no start up time and the feathers were realitvely fast, though if a player was paying enough attention they could easily avoid it.

The next one was a lot stronger but it did have the debuff of it having a long start up and cool off time. It breathed a large wave of super cold breath on to the players. While the damage it dealt could be easily classified as chip damage it had other added effects. It would slow down the players and also make their start up times longer. It was mainly an annoyance as the effect wasn't huge but it did slow them down.

It's last attack was one Tsubaki had only seen it activate once. It was when one of the more daring players jumped up to it and tried to attack it. Almost as though it had tripped over an invisible wire. Once the player got within a meter of the phoenix it's wing turned from rough feather like wings that looked a lot more natural into smooth as ice.

With these silky smooth wings the phoenix uses them as a shield, which Tsubaki kind of liked since it meant that it wasn't a offensive skill. Tsubaki needed to see if the phoenix had any other close range skills or effects and she knew just how to do it. Tsubaki opened her menu and pulled out a throwing dagger. She wasn't the most proficient or trained at throwing daggers but she knew she could hit a stationary object especially with the help of the system.

Tsubaki blew on the dagger for good luck then activated a sword skill and threw it at the boss. Once again once the dagger got within a meter of the phoenix it's wings turn silky smooth. The phoenix didn't move much all it did was used it's wings to block the hit, allowing for the dagger to put a crack into the otherwise perfect wing. That was good, no other skills of significance. Now she had a plan, all she need to do was get her two squads into formation.

XXXX

Who do you think is going to kill the boss?

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter!

Next chapter will be up in a week

Have a wonderful week!

-Kirk


	96. Instability

April 23, 2023

-Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Argo, Klein, Lynd, Godfree, Heathcliff, Kibaou, Ran, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

"J and K scatter and surround the phoenix from all sides, then attack by yourselves, no joint attacks." Tsubaki yelled once she was close enough for her squads to hear her. When they were dividing up the squads in the strategy meeting they gave Tsubaki two squads of her choice. Of course both Ran and Diavel were in front of her but she got to choose the two squads that were her first pick.

Her first choice was fuurinkazan because she trusted them the most, apart from Ran who was already booked. She had known Klein personally since around floor five and she trusted him. Albeit the was definitely some quirks that you had to get around to really get along with him but after that she found him to be a useful subordinate.

The squad was nothing particularly unique besides it was one of the best that was left at the time. The Knights squad were taken and the one Oath was taken Tsubaki opted for the other smaller guild. They weren't the strongest nor the smartest but that didn't matter to Tsubaki. All she needed was a squad that would follow her request no matter how extraneous they are.

There was still a couple of squads with Knights and Dragons but Tsubaki didn't personally think they could do as well the one she had picked. They didn't have a certain level of comradery that the smaller guild had. In addition to that they were all lot more confident in themselves, which isn't very bad on the surface but Tsubaki would rather not have players that are overly confident in her ranks.

Her two squads scattered then surround the squads pretty effectively. Although she would have a few criticisms to them, they basically did what she had wanted them to. She needed them to keep the phoenix from moving. If it strayed away then not only would it able to get away from her plans it would affect all the other players. And Tsubaki couldn't have that.

Tsubaki readied her sword then jumped up to meet the pheonix. It wasn't to far up to make it so she would have to use a skill but it was far enough that it wasn't very feasible to hit it off the ground. Luckily for her she didn't gain any aggro when doing this. Tsubaki was able to get about within a meter of the ice phoenix without it activating any counter measures.

But Tsubaki was prepared for the counter measures it would throw up as she had already devised a plan to break it down nearly flawlessly. The phoenix's wings turned from the feathery roughness to it's silky smooth defensive wings. Then the phoenix covered nearly all of it's body with the wings, protecting itself while keeping itself just barely off the ground.

Tsubaki only had the chance to get off two horizontals before falling back down to the ground. She land gracefully on both feet and was immediately prepared to tell her two squads what they were going to do.

Most of the players in the boss raid knew Tsubaki by her position of being one of the fastest and best strategists. It didn't take a brilliant honors student to know that rushing into a boss isn't the best idea. Though that is exactly what she had just down, she had done for a different purpose than to solo it.

She needed to set an example of what her fellow players should. If Tsubaki had learned anything from her time on the front lines it was that players learn best by example. She couldn't really say the same for her but it was one constant the seemed to resonate among the rest of the players.

"Squads J and K, do exactly what I just did, keep it from attacking but don't over do it!" Tsubaki yelled as she readied her sword. After watching about half of her subordinates go through the motion she joined them. The players were doing relatively what Tsubaki had wanted them to do. Jumping up without a skill and launch one to three attacks before falling back down. Though the rotation didn't take long it would add up since twelve players were continuously doing it.

After they all got into the motion of doing Tsubaki stepped out. Her skills would be more valuable in the background, analysing every small little things. Though she was somewhat of a competent swordswoman she had much more skill in finding the little things. The smallest of things can make the largest difference, and she needed to figure out those things.

Tsubaki continued to observe the skill players jump up and hit the boss but to no prevail. It seemed as though the bosses wings were immune against all the attacks that the players were throwing at it. It's smooth wings were still nearly flawless, nearly. She had already dented it once all she had to do was figure out how to dent it again.

Tsubaki opened her menu and materialized a dagger. She steady her aim and looked up at the boss. Her aim would have to even better than it was last time as there was players obstructing her view. Her first knife completely missed the phoenix, she didn't get close to hitting one of the player surrounding it.

Tsubaki breathed in and out after she materialized her second dagger. She couldn't be unsteady, if she did she might hit one of the players. She wasn't a player killer, she was a front line player. She couldn't call herself a front line player if she hit another player. After having this thought she threw the knife with near flawless form. It hit right where she wanted it to, her blade dug its way into the phoenix's wing, leaving a pretty decent dent in it before falling to the ground.

She pulled out her sword once again but before she could tell her subordinate what she had just learned she heard a scream come from behind her. It was from Diavel's team, the one's who were facing Marang. Almost immediately after having shifted her gaze from the phoenix to Diavel's squads she say one player explode, followed by two others. Diavel wasn't doing to hot, she needed to help but she couldn't just leave her squads.

"Squad J fall back and use long ranged weapons to attack it, squad K keep it from attacking by staying near it, Klein I leave you in charge!" Tsubaki yelled as she turned around to face her two squads. As she was yelling her commands she her another player die, this one was further away than the last, probably apart of Heathcliff's team.

Tsubaki turned back around to the Diavel's team in time se another player die. She needed to act fast, there was no way that she would let another player if she could stop it. Placing one foot after the other, Tsubaki ran at top speed towards the boss. She wasn't as fast as let's say Asuna but she did have some velocity to her.

As she reached Diavel's squad she got a look at what Marang had transformed into. Just like her golems she had an alternate form or at least she had given herself one. She now was about double the size of an average player but that wasn't what would shoot fear into the players. Coming out of each side was three arms, each one held a weapon or shield. Over top of her body, Marang had made herself some armor, mainly comprised of clay and ice.

From just the couple of seconds of looking at the boss she could tell that even though the boss had two shields, it was completely on the offensive. She wasn't giving Diavel's squads any time to recuperate, she was on their heels the entire time. If the first phase was hard then this phase would be nearly impossible.

XXXX

Hope you all enjoyed this Chapter!

Thank you to all who have Favorited, Followed, and Reviewed

Who do you think is getting the attack bonus?

Next chapter will be up in a few!

-Kirk


	97. Intent

April 23, 2023

-Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Argo, Klein, Lynd, Godfree, Heathcliff, Kibaou, Ran, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

Almost immediately after reaching Diavel's party Tsubaki found Ran towards her. Tsubaki concluded that she had done basically the same she had done with her squads. Tell them their attack formations then hand off her responsibilities to her most trusted subordinate. After all in all her years of knowing Ran they had a relatively the same minds.

Ran's twin had always described them as two halves of the same pie while she was the whipped cream. Tsubaki didn't really agree with it and neither did Ran but to anyone who didn't spend an extensive amount of time with them would believe with every fiber of their being. Tsubaki knew Ran as being very upfront and protective, she didn't shy away from a challenge.

She however was different. Tsubaki was a lot more reserved, having things happen to her instead of taking initiative. Tsubaki was reaction and while Ran was the opposite. During most of their duels Ran was the first one to attack as she actually had a basic sword technique unlike Tsubaki. Tsubaki technique was just to counter attack all of her opponents blows while Ran copies her opponent's attacks and adds them to her arsenal. With that said Ran's default sword technique had nearly nothing complex and was just comprise of some the most basic swings and slash. The kinds of things you learn during your first lesson.

"What's the plan?" Tsubaki asked Ran once they within speaking distance. Which basically meant 5 meters away since they're teenage girls.

"No time for that, we need to distract the boss." Ran stated once she got closer to Tsubaki. Neither of them waited another moment after the last syllable left Ran's mouth, they both sprinted to the boss with all of the strength that they had left in them. Ran was faster than Tsubaki but not by much.  
By the time the two of them reach the boss, they had seen a brilliant flash of blue. This served as an unneeded reminder of the trails they were about to face. Neither wanted for a second once the reached the front of the pack, they both broke through the formation and went directly for the boss.

Tsubaki knew that it wasn't a smart idea nor an idea that she had like but they didn't have any choice. Diavel's squads needed time to recuperate and reorganize, and that's what Ran and Tsubaki had intended to give them. Even if it meant that they would run face first into danger. Neither of them intended to shy away from their duty, no amount of danger would scare them.

They both attacked the boss at the same but the boss easily block both of their attacks with two of it's shields. Then it used two of it's swords to attack both of them. Ran jumped back and out of the bosses attack range while Tsubaki parried it then back away. Almost immediately after Tsubaki disengage from the boss, the boss was right on their heels.

Marang used it's two staffs to separate Tsubaki from Ran and once she did Marang launched both of her swords at Tsubaki. Tsubaki ducked under the horizontal then used her xiphos to block the vertical. Her block of the vertical didn't go as well she had hoped as Marang just used an immense amount of strength to overwhelm Tsubaki and knock her off to the side. The whole entire time Marang was taking care of Tsubaki, she was also using her shields to block any and all incoming attacks from Ran.

Marang didn't give Tsubaki any time to get up as immediately as she was knocked off to the side, Marang shot an icicle at her. Tsubaki easily deflected it with a wide vertical but after she did she noticed the boss's staff coming right at her. Having just used her sword to block an attack Tsubaki didn't react fast enough to block the incoming strike. Luckily for her she didn't have to as Ran deflected the staff.

The boss reacted almost instantaneously, jamming it's shield into Ran's side. This flung Ran away but she was able to land on her feet. Using the mere seconds of which her friend had given her Tsubaki jumped away from the boss. While she did, Tsubaki opened her menu and materialized her blue shield. It had been awhile since she had used but this was as good a time as she was going to get.

Once Tsubaki landed on the ground, she ran at the boss, not even giving herself a second to make sure her balance was steady. Marang shot an icicle at Tsubaki to slow her down but Tsubaki just blocked it with her shield. Only after getting close enough so that Marang's staff could hit her, Tsubaki jumped over the bosses two staffs.

Tsubaki plan was once she got to the apex of her jump she would reposition her weight so that she would go directly down and onto the boss. In planning it seemed like a great idea and it also seemed to doing well in practice until it came time for Tsubaki to attack. Tsubaki had everything accounted for and reassured except for one, the boss's strength.

Tsubaki knew that the boss would be exceptionally strong like all the other bosses she had faced up to this point but she would have never expect the boss's strength to exceed anything she had faced before. But it did and so much more. Tsubaki attack completely back fired onto herself. The boss simply block the attack the slammed the blunt end of her staff into Tsubaki side.

This made Tsubaki fly off to the side and onto the ground with a loud thud. Just the staff hit and the impact against the ground had made Tsubaki loss half her health. But that wouldn't stop her. She had made up her mind when she gave her subordinates her orders. She wouldn't shy away no matter the danger the boss showed.

Tsubaki readied her shield and sword and waited for the boss to come at her. She knew that another assault would likely result badly for Tsubaki, but she would be on the receiving end. She was more reactionary, able to adapt based on the conditions that faced her. Tsubaki knew that she would have a better chance being on the defensive rather than offensive. Tsubaki prepared herself for the next oncoming attack but was glad when Ran finally met up with her.

"What do you know?" Ran asked once she readied her sword.

"Incredible at multitasking, I think it could take on eight players without a problem. Fight style is erratic, there is no clear patterns though it is exceptional at counter attacking. Can someone ice without using its hands, also can presumably do the same with clay and mud, no obvious weaknesses." Tsubaki informed Ran.

"I found a weakness." Ran stated.

"What?" Tsubaki asked Ran. She hadn't found any in her time of dueling with the twenty fifth floor boss.

"Though it is great at multitasking, it is not that aware of it's surroundings, we can surprise attack it." Ran stated. Tsubaki looked over to Ran and nodded. They now had a plan, albeit and hard to pull but it was better than nothing. Tsubaki readied her shield and sword once again while Ran split away from her.

Marang came at with everything she had. Both of the staffs slammed into Tsubaki's shield which made her whole entire body vibrate. Tsubaki dodge both of the verticals but was hit in the faced with the boss's shield. Tsubaki jumped back and as she did she saw Ran jump towards the boss.

Ran was going to use a combination of linears and short slashes to break through the boss's armor but she never got the chance. Just like her friend she was hit in the face with one of the boss's shield, in act it was the same shield that Tsubaki was hit by. The strength of the hit made her get knocked off to the side but she luckily landed on her two feet. Once she landed she reconvened with Tsubaki.

"That didn't work." Tsubaki stated as she wiped her face.

"Your kinding, ready for round two?" Ran said after she wiped her face. Ran peeled away from Tsubaki again but instead she went backwards instead of off to the right like she had done last time.

Tsubaki readied her shield and sword and almost as soon as she did she was attacked again. First with two icicles which she block easily with her shield then with two staffs both coming for her sides, one from the left and another from the right. Tsubaki jumped back to avoid the staffs the raised her shield to block both of the boss's incoming swords. But then while she was in the air she was hit with the boss's staff knocking her off course and into the ground.

The boss turned around sharply and wacked Ran yet again with her shield sending her to the ground. Then Marang turned back around and readied her staff. Marang's staff was directly above Tsubaki's stomach. She wouldn't have time to move out of the way or deflect it. If Marang ever got the chance to penetrate her stomach then she would die. Tsubaki prepared for the inevitable, she closed her eyes and thought about all the things she would never see. Her dad, Her mom, Yuuki, so many things she wanted to see but wouldn't be able to if she died here. Tsubaki waited for the piercing pain to erupt in her abdomen but it never came.

Tsubaki opened her eyes and looked around. The last of the boss's blue shards were disappearing and the congratulations banner had appeared. Lying next to her was a rapier, not the strongest rapier, most likely from around floor fifteen. Tsubaki sat up and looked around to find the closest player.

She found Asuna with no sword in hand looking in the opposite direction. Tsubaki put two and two together. Asuna had done what she and Ran had not, she surprised the boss, and in that one act had killed it. Tsubaki stood up and exhaled. She had almost died and in that moment she that about all the things that she wouldn't every get to see. Right then and there she made a vow, to live as long as possible.

XXXX

There you go, the twenty fifth boss fight is finished.

What do you think will change after this boss fight?  
Feel free to tell me, I would like to now!

Next chapters will be up in a week

-Kirk


	98. Innovation

April 25, 2023

-Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Argo, Klein, Lynd, Godfree, Heathcliff, Ran, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

"Thank you for coming, now without further ado we will being." Heathcliff stated as he projected his voice across the medium size room. It was some sort of dining hall that they had found on the newly opened twenty sixth floor. It held some of the strongest members in the whole of Aincrad, for a meeting that would most likely change the boss raids in the future.

Asuna looked around to the players surrounding her. They were mostly guild leaders and their second in command. In addition to those players they had all of those players they also had quite a few solo players with Argo also being in that group. Asuna really had no idea why Argo was at the meeting but since entering the meeting Argo hadn't closed her menu. If Asuna had to guess, she would say that Argo was a court reporter but instead of her scribing and court she was scribing this meeting.

"As you all know we had lost twelve players in the fight against the twenty fifth boss, Diavel and I came to an agreement that we would would have to change the procedure." Heathcliff stated to all of the players in the room. Once the last word left his mouth Heathcliff turned his head to face Diavel, who was just mere steps away from him.

"From now one Heathcliff and I will be apart of one guild, The Knights of the Blood Oath." Diavel stated. He intentionally left a couple of moments silence for the players to soak it in before speaking again. "We will decide the leader in a duel after this meeting but we also have some other news to discuss." Diavel stated as he got out of the front of the room.

The room had six tables in with some room in the front where Diavel and Heathcliff had been talking. In the front there was two podiums, one with Diavel and the other with Heathcliff. Currently Diavel was giving his podium to Argo who had been sitting in one of the front three tables. Asuna had chosen the table in the back of the room.

She wasn't the only person at the table as both Kazuma and Godfree had decide to take a seat at her table. She personally didn't mind it but she couldn't help but wonder why Godfree was sitting at her table instead of with the other people in his guild. Also she wondered why Kazuma was even at the meeting but after a while she just assumed one of the guilds were going to recruit him.

Kazuma wasn't the strongest of players nor the smartest but Asuna could tell that he strived for nothing short of excellence. His outlook on life was definitely one that wanted to make the best of the situation even if the situation would result in his death. His skills weren't stellar but he was definitely stronger than the average army member. One thing she had found out about him the moment she met him was that he was definitely a lot stronger when facing against something that he was truly passionate about.

Once Argo got to the podium she finally closed her menu that started to speak to the rest of the players in the room. She didn't have the ability to present as well as either Heathcliff or Diavel but she still able to hold her own in a different way.

"Hello everyone, I am Argo the most noxious info broker you will ever meet but if you want some information you will have to wait until after the meeting." Argo started. Her hands were moving faster than her mouth, it was clear to Asuna that she talked with her hands not her mouth. "On floor five we had a meeting one guild creation and in that meeting we made three guilds that would lead us through the first floors." Argo stated as she looked around to everyone. She didn't project her voice out as much as the guild leaders but her feminine voice still caught the attention of the players.

"As you just saw our first guild is about to merge with another guild, but I am here to tell all of you that one guild will be retracted from the front lines. The Army suffered nine player deaths and it brought to our attention that the majority of them didn't have the same levels as the rest of the front lines." Argo stated without a single break her speech, if it was the really world then she would have probably had to take a breath but in the game she didn't.

"Effective immediately we are retracting our deal with The Army and going into a two guild force but that does not mean the we are completely losing our long ranged support as Lynd, Heathcliff, and Diavel will send players to a new guild, Saffi if you could please." Argo said and almost immediately afterwards left the stand for Saffi to take.

Asuna had never even talked to Saffi but she had seen her in action many times. It seemed as though in each boss battle she was wielding a different weapon, from her shurikens that she was known for, to a metal ball that no one even knew was in the game. In the Army she had two squads and she usually took one of them to the boss battle as she gave the other players time to relax. From the few words that Asuna had heard from her subordinates she was a benevolent leader but not afraid to punish those who do not do as they are told.

"Hello, I am Saffi, I doubt most of you have never talked to me but I was head of The Army's long ranged support team." Saffi said calmly and smoothly. Her voice was very soft and reserved, Asuna wondered who a person like that could become a leader especially with her small stature. "I am here to announce that since The Army is retracting from the front lines I will be leaving the Army and starting my own guild, Storm of Centuries." Saffi stated. Afterwards she gulped then started to speak once again.

"There is one player I would like to invite to my guild, Sinon I would be honored to have you as my second." Saffi stated as she bowed her head down. Asuna looked around to find Sinon. She was sitting in one of the back tables like herself but was walking up to the front of the room. Once she got there she asked Saffi something. Asuna couldn't make out any words but she did make out two words that Saffi said, Of course. Sinon went to sit back down and so did Saffi, now they were both in the front of the room.

"Now I would also like to invite a few players into The Knights of the Blood Oath." Heathcliff said he open his menu and materialized a piece of paper. Heathcliff said one name that Asuna didn't know that well but he had been at almost all of the recent boss raids. The man accepted after standing up and bowing.

"We would like to invite Ran and Tsubaki for their continuous efforts against all of the boss's." Heathcliff stated as he looked over to Ran and Tsubaki. The two looked at each other then Ran spoke up.

"I will humbly decline your offer, there is still some things I would like to attend to before I get myself involved with a guild." Ran stated as she bowed her head and upper body.

"What about you, Tsubaki?" Heathcliff asked though Asuna thought he would already know the answer.

"I will also decline your offer." Tsubaki responded.

"I see, the offer will always be on the table, you can join The Knights of the Blood Oath whenever you like if your decision changes." Heathcliff stated. His face didn't change even after having to members decline his offer. "Next I would like to invite Kazuma for his continuous one hundred percent support in the boss raids." Heathcliff said as he gaze wandered over to Kazuma.

"I have one request." Kazuma stated as he stood up.

"I would like to hear it." Heathcliff stated. Kazuma walked up to Heathcliff asked him his question. Asuna couldn't make out any of the words but she could tell it went well since at the end of it, Kazuma announced the he was going to join The Knights of the Blood Oath.

"We have one last player to invite, Asuna we would like to invite you to be our third behind Diavel and myself for your bravery and sacrifice in all of the boss raids." Heathcliff stated as he bowed his whole entire body.

Asuna felt all of the eyes in the room fall towards her. The moment Saffi announced that she would be inviting someone Asuna felt like she was going to get invited to one of them guilds. Asuna only had one reason to decline and she didn't even know if the reason was even alive yet only wanted to talk to her.

"I accept." Asuna said after she stood up and bowed.

"Thank you, with that all done we would like to invite you all to the coliseum on this floor, me and Diavel are going to duel to see who is the leader. Anyone is able to come, there is no charge." Heathcliff stated as he walked of the podium.

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So… What do you think the questions are?

Also I just now realised that chapter 100 is going to be uploaded on the twenty fifth, it's like I planned it or something.

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next one will be up in a few.

-Kirk


	99. Improved

April 25, 2023

-Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Argo, Silica, Klein, Johnny, Lynd, Heathcliff, Kazuma, Saffi-

"This is more of a turnout than I had expected." DIavel stated as he looked all around him. He was currently in the arena along with Heathcliff, who was standing just a couple of meters away from him, just close enough that they could talk. Diavel still hadn't materialized his sword as Heathcliff had both out.

"I didn't expect to see all of the Dragons here today." Heathcliff stated. Diavel had kind of expected that to happen but he still didn't think that this little duel could fill the huge colosseum like it did. There was every few seats left and the few seats that were left were not the best seats in the house, in fact far from it.

"Shall I start this?" Diavel asked as he pulled open his menu and went the duel section.

"You may." Heathcliff stated as he relax his sword and accept the duel request that had been just sent to him. They were about to duel until half health.

Diavel closed his menu and took out his sword from its sheath. He had gotten this sword as the last attack bonus for the twenty third boss, no doubt one of the best swords around. Its name, Thousand Rays, Dawnbringer. It was a broadsword that had a simplistic design. Besides for its perfect blade the hilt was just two pieces of metal pointing outwards. In the middle of them was an insignia for the sun.

The sword was definitely one of his prized possessions in the game even more so that his shield. Not to say his shield wasn't good it just couldn't hold up to a last attack bonus weapon. He had it made by his guilds personal blacksmith, who in fact had made his sword before he got the Dawnbringer. The blacksmith was also the player that had sharpened it to where it was today. It doesn't matter how good the sword if it wasn't sharp than it wouldn't work.

Diavel readied his sword and shield with only a couple seconds left before the duel started. His shield covered most of his body only leaving his ankles and head open to attacking. Though he had been using a buckler when the game first started after getting a blacksmith, he had no use for a smaller shield.

Diavel wasn't the fastest of players and he knew this. Players who used bucklers generally wanted to keep their speed. Most bucklers didn't decrease their user speed stat as much as a full body shield did as they were quite a lot smaller. Diavel prioritized his defense more than his speed as his speed wasn't quite as fast as would need to be even comparable to someone like Asuna.

The countdown timer hit zero and neither of them pounced on to each other. Diavel stayed back and observed his opponent's stance. This wasn't something that he typical did as he didn't have the most trained eye but after twenty five floors he had gotten some training for it. He wasn't anywhere near either Tsubaki or Ran but he could at least point out some weak spots in a player's stance.

Heathcliff's stance was much different from his own as his stance was much more relaxed. His sword pointed directly upwards while his shield was held on his left side of his body, leaving his right side open to attacks. But Diavel wasn't that novice, he knew that the right side was guarded, perhaps even more than the left side.

Diavel didn't have much to go off of either as he never really took into account how Heathcliff actually fought. The only time he had actually seen Heathcliff fight was inside boss battles, and the boss posed much more of a threat than Heathcliff did. Though Diavel did know one thing from his time fighting alongside Heathcliff. Heathcliff used his shield as a secondary weapon.

This wasn't something that Diavel ever did as he wasn't confident enough in his abilities as a fighter to let his shield do the attacking, he would much rather use his sword. Diavel had never even held a sword till the beta and he doubted that without the time that he got in the beta he wouldn't be anywhere near level of swordsmanship he was at today.

The battle was a test of his abilities as a fighter as the boss raids were a test of his abilities as a leader. But this would not only show his abilities as a fighter, it would also give his subordinates a example to look to. Something to strive for. Win or lose, Diavel hoped that this battle would be something that his subordinates would remember.

Diavel ran at Heathcliff and initiated a downwards vertical. As expect Heathcliff very easily blocked with his own shield then did a short linear to make sure that Diavel was still using his shield. Of course Diavel was he and he swiftly and carefully blocked. Afterwards Diavel started to back away but Heathcliff wasn't having any of that.

Heathcliff stayed directly on top of Diavel making dangerous for him to turn around and actually flee with some speed. Diavel needed to find some way to take back control and he only had one idea in his mind, to use his shield. He mustered up all the strength he could in the little time the provided to him and pushed his shield into Heathcliff.

This caught Heathcliff of guard as he didn't expect Diavel to do something that he had never done before. Heathcliff's shield was barely able to block it and even that didn't do much as it left Heathcliff severely of balanced. Diavel took advantage of this and sent a linear directly at Heathcliff's head.

Heathcliff attempted to dodge it but it didn't seem as though luck was on his side as Diavel's sword still cut open his cheek. Of course since they were in a game the only thing that was shown just a red hue for a second before it went away but it did make Heathcliff's heath bar go down a little bit. This was enough to make Heathcliff try to disengage and recuperate.

But like Heathcliff had done before Diavel stayed on top of him, constantly throwing verticals and horizontals. Diavel doubt that Heathcliff could continuously block his continuous stream of attacks but yet again he had never seen Heathcliff's health dip down into the yellow. His skill is uncanny if he managed to pull that off. Diavel wouldn't have to pull of something of that caliber, he would just have to end Heathcliff's streak.

He needed to remain attentive if he was going to beat Heathcliff, no doubt that Heathcliff would eventually find a pattern in his attacks and take advantage of it. To prevent this Diavel constantly tried to take certain attacks out while adding other ones in though he found that if he wasn't actively trying not to do the specific attack he would do it.

After unleashing a horizontal at Heathcliff, he ducked underneath of it and swiped at Diavel's legs with his sword. Instinctively Diavel jumped up to avoid the strike but that was only phase one of Heathcliff's plan. Once Diavel was in the air, Heathcliff used his shield to attack him. Diavel blocked it with his own shield this attack sent a shockwave through his body and was strong enough to push him back.

Once Heathcliff got more room to breath he immediately attacking Diavel, who had only just recently touched the ground. Heathcliff's first attack was with his shield and it was directed directly at Diavel's head. Diavel attempted to block it but his sword didn't much against the bulking shield that Heathcliff carried.

Then Heathcliff launched a horizontal at Diavel's sword which hit its target without any difficulty. This sent a rimple effect through Diavel's arm causing him to drop his sword. Taking advantage of this, Heathcliff sent a barrage of different attacks, including those that included his shield. Diavel couldn't hold up after a while and after a few well placed strikes, Heathcliff disarmed Diavel. And with that Diavel forfeited the match.

"Good match." Diavel said as he extended his hand out to Heathcliff. Heathcliff showed a small smile as he shook Diavel's hand.

"I look forward to working with you." Heathcliff stated once he broke their handshake.

"As do I." Diavel said as he bowed.

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How did you like this chapter?

If you have any question feel free to tell me.

Thanks to all who have Liked, Commented, and Subscribed!

Next chapter will be posted in a week

-Kirk


	100. Finally

April 26, 2023

-Sinon, Silica, Saffi-

Sinon looked around her new room and wasn't particularly impressed. Though it was bigger than her apartment in the real world it wasn't much. It had a double bed with night stands on both sides. Her bed in the real world was a single bed with no night stands yet only one on both sides.

In addition to her larger bed, her bathroom was substantially larger. Though most females in the game would probably say that their bathrooms in the real world would be out of this world but Shino would beg to differ. Her bathroom in the real world was just the usual full bathroom, not even a large vanity.

The one in this world had everything, at least everything Shino had seen or knew of could be in a bathroom. It had a huge bath and a separate shower which Sinon didn't know if she would ever use either. It also had a double vanity which really didn't make sense to Sinon as to why Saffi gave her one. Maybe she could use one vanity for one of her hands and the other for her other hand. She would have to test that out sometime.

Connected to her bedroom was a nice size kitchen, well at least nicer than the one she had in her apartment. The one her apartment could be classified as a glorified hallway. It had cabinets on one side and just a plain old wall on the other. Her kitchen now was much than a singular walkway. It was square and with a nice size island with a marble top. The surrounding walls had a cabinets all across them, plus a stove something that she didn't have in her apartment. In addition to the stove it had a microwave to cook food and a refrigerator to keep food preserved.

Sinon would have never bought a place to stay as she was perfectly fine with staying at the inns. However she didn't have to buy this room as Saffi had bought a place for her guild. It seemed as though she had been saving up for a while. With her being the second in command she had gotten one of the better, as it was kind of it's own house. Sinon, however doubted that she would be spending much time in it, Silica would probably have more use out of her room.

Next to her room was Silica's little quaint room. Sinon liked Silica's room a lot, it was warm and it felt like it could be an actually home. Well at least more than her own, Sinon liked smaller places but Saffi didn't know that. Sinon had actually considered switching her room with Silica's but she decided that she would try out her oasis before she shipped it off.

Sinon heard a knock on her door and assumed it was Silica. Saffi had requested to meet Silica after they got settled in. Sinon didn't have to do much settling but Silica had to. Sinon opened the door to find the younger player with her benevolent blue dragon. The dragon was sitting on top of Silica's head while Silica petted it's lower back.

"You ready?" Silica asked after a couple moments of Sinon admiring their comradery. It was amazing how close they had gotten in a short time, it reminded her of relationship with Kazuto. Though it did end as fast as it had started.

"...Yeah, let's go." Sinon responded after a couple to many seconds of staring. Sinon walked out of her room a closed the door behind her. There was no reason to really steal, unless of course if someone wanted to steal the slice of cake that was in the refrigerator. And if someone from the guild had the audacity to break into the second in commands room she would just give it to them.

Sinon and Silica walked through the hallway side by side. The hallways that they walked through were plain and basic but were also simple. Sinon felt the hallways as though the hallways belonged in a school except without the dreaded classrooms. Every couple of paces there was a doorway, presumably to more rooms. After a while they found the Saffi in her room, which was clear on the opposite side of her headquarters.

"Hey Hey, how's your new rooms?" Saffi asked before either Silica or Sinon even saw her. In response to the sudden addition of players, Pina fell off of Silica's head and didn't recover before she hit the ground. Silica flew to her knees immediately and helped Pina back onto her head.

"Sorry." Saffi said as she held out her hand to help Silica backup. Silica took the older woman's hand and pulled gently to get back on to her two feet. "I haven't introduced myself yet, I'm Saffi, it's a pleasure to be working with you." Saffi said as she bowed to Silica.

"Haven't I seen you before?" Silica asked as she tilted her head slightly as though she was contemplating something. Pina also mimicked this action, though the little dragon had some issues staying on top of Silica's head. Then Silica looked up to Pina while Pina looked down towards her. "Pina hasn't seen you before." Silica stated as she scratched her head.

"We can discuss where you may know from later but we have other things to discuss before hand, if you may." Saffi said as she pointed them into her room. Silica walked into Saffi's room, quickly followed by Sinon and then Saffi. Saffi closed the door behind them the quickly walked ahead of them. "There's a table over here, please talk a seat." Saffi stated as her hand pointed in the direction of the table.

"Thank you." Sinon said as she took a seat. She observed the room around her while Silica and Saffi took their seats. Saffi's room was much like her own except it was bigger in most regards. It also had doors that separate the main room that they were in from presumably the kitchen and the bathroom with additional door the Sinon didn't know where it went to immediately. She guessed it would Saffi's bedroom as the room they were in didn't have a bed in it.

"First and foremost I would like to ask you your level, If you are going to be a member of my guild I would like to know a bit about your capabilities as a player before I have you join." Saffi stated as she looked straight at Silica. Her look wasn't an intimidating look however, it lacked emotions of any kind. Sinon had fought alongside Saffi for a while now and if there was one thing Saffi excelled in, it was her ability to change her emotions on the flip on a dime. She could be happy and cheerful right before the raid happened then immediately cold and serious.

"I am level thirty two, almost level thirty three." Silica stated as she took Pina off her head and sat her down on the table.

"Alright that's actually better than I had expected, what do you specialize in?" Saffi asked.

"Closed range combat with a knife." Silica stated.

"Okay, if I may, what combat abilities to process from your dragon, what was it's name?"

"Her name is Pina-" Silica was cut off by Pina jumping back onto her head. "And she can heald players and use her bubble attack to attack." Silica stated as she scratched Pina's head and back.

"That's really cool, how much can it heal?" Saffi asked, suddenly a lot more intrigued.

"About five hundred health each time I use it, about ten to fifteen uses in ten minutes." Silica stated with an unsure wavering in her voice when she started talking numbers.

Saffi taped her fingers and the table while she contemplated what she was going to do. "I'll invite you to the guild but I don't feel comfortable bringing you to a boss raid yet, I would like you to keep me updated on your progress if that's okay with." Saffi proposed her plan.

"Okay!" Silica said as she suddenly shot up and out of her chair. Saffi sent her the request to have join the guild. Silica immediately accepted the request then her shot up into the air was she yelled one word, Yatta.

"Loud and spontaneous, I like you, Welcome to the Storm of Centuries, I look forward to a long partnership." Saffi said as she bowed to Silica.

"I do also." Silica stated as she bowed. In result as of her bowing, Pina fell of her head.

XXXX

Hey look, it's silica, bet you forgot about her!

Happy Christmas to those who celebrate it and to those who don't have a wonderful day

Hope you all enjoyed the first hundred chapters, trust this isn't anywhere near done

Thank you to all of you who have read a chapter, it truly means a lot


	101. Flamberge

April 27, 2023

-Asuna and Lizbeth-

"Asuna, it's been forever since I've seen you in forever!" Lizbeth exclaimed once she saw Asuna, who had just recently walked into her shop. She had been working on a sword for a player, this particular player she didn't really like. This was probably the sixth or seventh time working on this exact sword, Lizbeth was pretty sure he just wanted to spend time with her. She would gladly delay this maintenance for practically anything. And chatting with Asuna was more than just anything.

"Sorry, I've been busy with the front lines and things." Asuna said once she entered the blacksmith's backroom. The room was basically the same as it had been the last time she had been it the room. It was practically a forge room with a bed just thrown in the corner. But now it also had a couch, A couch that would soon be Asuna's lounging spot. Without even saying anything Asuna walked over to the couch and collapsed on to it.

"Jezz, is the front lines that tiring?" Lizbeth asked rhetorically once she sat down next to Asuna. She had just left the forge on top of her anvil, since she was only doing maintenance she could stop at any time as long as she could remember where she had left off. During forgery she really couldn't stop the process at any time as at most time she was dealing with hot metal.

That, however wasn't the case with maintenance, at least at the the caliber she was currently doing. The only time she needed to do anything that dealt with hot materials was when when the weapon was seriously messed up. Like to the point where it was bent out of proportions. She didn't come across those weapons that often and charged extra for it. Plus the player that had given her this job only dulled the sword, which was an easy fix, albeit time consuming.

"Can you forge me another rapier In kind of overused the last one." Asuna stated once she sat up, but that was after quite of few moments. She rubbed her eyes and then yawned. "I have a lot of money to, use your best materials." Asuna stated as she gave Lizbeth a huge sack of col. In fact she had a little bit of trouble holding it, but Lizbeth had a much harder time holding it.

"How do have this much money!" Lizbeth exclaimed as she put it into her inventory. But putting it into her inventory only made her mouth drop even further than it already had. "How did you get this much money, this more than enough for a sword you could probably get two for this much!" Lizbeth asked Asuna while keeping the level of surprise as high as it was when she first acquired the col. Scratch that her level of excitement had went through the roof since then.

"Don't worry about the money, I got it from the guild." Asuna said without a single sound of trickery or deceit. She stood up and started to look around her friends room. It was a lot more decorated than it had been last time. Besides for the obvious upgrade in her tools and equipment she also had some additional items. Though these items weren't as abundant as her tools, they were able to make the forgery feel more welcoming. "You should get a place with more rooms." Asuna stated after looking around for awhile. Though there was nothing apparently wrong with her place, it wasn't very practical or business like to have her bed in her forgery.

"With the money you just gave me I might be able to." Lizbeth stated once she got to her metal assortment of metals. She could have them stored inside her inventory but she liked to actually be able to see them with her own two eyes, or rather her avatar's eyes. To Lizbeth there were no apparent disadvantages to her storage.

The one thing that Lizbeth could come up with was the possibility of someone stealing it but she doubted the someone would be able to do it with the additional town protections. After working with the metals for a long time Lizbeth noticed that in their unrefined states she could still tell the difference between them. It's not a skill that she would bet her life on, however it didn't mean that the skill wasn't extremely useful.

"Rapier still, right?" Lizbeth asked as she picked up a couple of different metals and examined. She heard a very stately yes then went over to her anvil and started to contemplate on which one she should use. "Strength or Speed?" Lizbeth asked Asuna out of the blue.

"Speed preferably." Was the answer that Lizbeth suspected to her and the one that Asuna had said. A rapier by nature was a lot more faster than most other one handed swords as most other swords were based on strength. Any other sword that Lizbeth had to make that was based on speed was more or less a variation on rapiers.

Lizbeth placed the metal she had decided on anvil the started to prepare for the task ahead of her. In the last couple of weeks she had learned how to make extraordinary swords in usual setting. When she had started her best swords were made when she was having a great time but now that factor really didn't play into as much anymore. That, however didn't mean she was going to pass up an opportunity to talk to her best friend.

"I heard that you killed the last boss, how was it?" Lizbeth asked. She had heard of the recent boss raid from some of her customer. The destruction of the twenty fifth boss was practically common knowledge however who killed it wasn't something that she knew from the beginning. What surprised her the most was that someone she knew personally had kill it, though to be fair Asuna was one of the strongest players on the front lines.

"Strangely gratifying actually." Asuna stated shortly but then continued. "During the boss raid I had personally dueled the boss for an extended period of time and let me tell you, It hurt!" Asuna stated exaggeratedly. Almost her whole entire last sentence was exaggeratedly and elongated which really helped Lizbeth grasp the weight of her words. "But all of that just made it more gratifying for me to surprise attack the boss and kill her in one fell swoop." Asuna signed at the end of her sentence.

"You took out the boss in one attack?" Libzeth asked rhetorically. She had almost finished Asuna's blade by now. She had chosen one of the rarest metals she had in stock. Lizbeth didn't particularly remember the name of the metal since it really didn't matter but it was dark yellow with an incredible shine to it.

"Straight through the head, the boss didn't even see me coming." Asuna said gleefully. As soon as Asuna had ended the last syllable of coming her blade was finished. But there was one slight problem, it didn't look like a rapier at least. Instead of looking like a needle, it was more flat and was flameblade. But the one that she had just crafted was more defined than the usually flame blade in fact in Lizbeth's mind it look more like a lightning blade.

"What's that?" Asuna asked curtly.

"Hold on… It's the Spada, Flamberge of Invocation." Lizbeth stated.

"Is that even a rapier?" Asuna asked, still not sure if she had gotten the full value of the excessive amount of col she had given Lizbeth.

"Technically yes." Lizbeth hesitantly said as she handed Asuna the irregular sword. Asuna swung the sword around and tried out of couple swords skills until she gave a look of defeat.

"It works." Asuna said quietly.

"Hold on I've been saving this nickname for awhile now… The Lightning Flash Asuna!" Lizbeth stated proudly.

"NO!" Asuna explicitly showed her discomfort.

XXXX

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter, I sure enjoyed writing it and yes a flamberge is a real thing.

Thanks to all who lent me their support in year one!

Have a wonderful day and thank you!

The next chapters will be up in the new year!

-Kirk


	102. Function

April 30, 2023

-Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Argo, Klein, Lynd, Godfree, Heathcliff, Ran, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

Tsubaki looked up towards the boss, Volrath, The Second Storm. They had fought this boss once before, he was the floor thirteen boss. In that boss battle he had a dragon without any limbs besides wings. In addition to that he couldn't attack on his own, leaving him vulnerable when Tsubaki managed to get on top of his dragon. Tsubaki had dealt the last attack last time but she had no idea who the lucky patron would be this time.

It had seemed as though the boss had evolved from last time making up for it's weaknesses that had gotten it killed last time. Volrath now had offensive capabilities, which included various different types of arm transformations. In it's based state Volrath's lower arms looked like tiny but fierce dragon arms. Volrath was also able to manipulate the bones in his arm to make more deadly.

However Volrath wasn't the only one to undergo significant changes, his dragon had also. Now it had quiet a larger head, it could probably bite through the side of a skyscraper and still have room left over. It also had arms and legs now with the inclusion of a deadly tail. The dragon's tail was no lined with spikes the went off every which way, making almost as dangerous as it's head.

They were just over the halfway point in the boss raid and not single player had been in a near death experience or even really damaged besides the fire from the dragon. Even when the boss changed it's attack style no one got hurt. Diavel and Heathcliff's new plan was really working out as well as anyone could have hoped. Tsubaki didn't think that Diavel's strategy wasn't all that bad but she did agree with everyone that doing two boss raids a week would tire them all out.

"Squad B C push forward and provide cover while squads D and E retreat!" Diavel commanded to everyone in the boss room. Though he was no longer the commander of a guild he was just as strong as Heathcliff if not better when it came to commanding. Heathcliff may be the commander of the guild but when it came rallying the players Diavel was far ahead.

Tsubaki was in squad B as their wasn't really any A squad anymore to speak of. Instead players were trusted a lot more with improvisation. Though Tsubaki was able to yell commands once she figured out a weak point. Tsubaki actually kind of liked the change as that meant she wasn't depended on as much as before. Pressure was never something that she could handle that well and she was even surprised that she handled it for as long as she had.

Tsubaki brandished her sword towards the boss then started to run at the boss along with the other members of her squad. Her squad was made of up mostly high level players but none that she had known personally. That was fine with her as she worked best when she was by herself, even when examining the boss she and Ran almost never did it at the same time.

Once she got near the boss she activated her sonic leap and jumped up to get a swing at it. She felt her large overhead swing rip through the tough scales of the dragon. The dragon didn't have the tough scales at the start of the battle, but after the dragon lost half of it's health it had evolved. Besides for it's tough scales it grew another pair of wings above its other set. Tsubaki didn't see it give the dragon any addition offensive capabilities however it did give the boss better flight and stability.

Since she was the first player out of her squad to get a direct hit on the dragon she got the boss's aggro. This was completely fine with her however as she kind of wanted the boss's aggro. Most players would call her crazy but she still hadn't gotten that good of a hold on the boss's attack style. Though to be fair this was the quickest route to death and believe it or not most players did not want to die.

The dragon first breathed it's fire on to Tsubaki and the nearby players. All of the other players dove out of the way to avoid the dragon's fire, however Tsubaki didn't have this delicacy. Tsubaki simply used her xiphos shield attempt to shield her face from the fire. This really didn't go over that well but she didn't go too damaged as it could have.

Tsubaki felt the fire spread across her upper body and it hurt a lot. It was as though someone was tickle her entire body except that every time their finger moved it cut skin. However this wouldn't stop Tsubaki as she had experienced things that hurt more than a literal wildfire spreading across her body. Tsubaki couldn't stop since if she did she would get hit by the onslaught of attacks that were about to be launched at her.

When looking in the face of death you can either run towards and fight or run away and flew. Tsubaki wasn't one to fight for what she believed in but like most people she didn't want to die. She wasn't go just sit down and die. She would fight to see the light of another day, she wouldn't forgive herself if she lost hope after she had lost hope in the last boss battle. She wouldn't let that happen no, she couldn't let that happen.

She swung a large horizontal in front of her to clear away some of the lingering smoke from the fire and to defend any possible attacks. As expected she heard and felt the slightest of bit of contact between her sword and the dragon's claw. Not enough to damage the dragon but enough to alert her of where the dragon's claw was.

Instinctively she jumped up to avoid the dragon's next attack. Though she didn't yet have a grasp of the dragon's attack patterns, it didn't mean that she couldn't predict attacks. Tsubaki just couldn't rely on her predictions as they could be easily be wrong but thankfully this one wasn't. The smallest gleam sneaked its way through the smoke and it told Tsubaki that the dragon's claw had just passed underneath of her.

Tsubaki immediately shifted her weight downwards and did a strategic fall towards presumably the dragon's arm. But she wasn't that lucky this time as she didn't hit where she had wanted to. She hit the dragon just right above it's claws, in fact her xiphos was stuck in between the dragon's tough hide and its razor sharp claws. And unluckily for her, her sword was stuck right there.

The dragon raised its arm up to it's mouth and tried to breath fire on Tsubaki but Tsubaki didn't have any of it. Fearing this, Tsubaki, instead of staying with her sword she jumped up on top of the dragon and brought out her shield as soon as her balance was steady enough. Her sword could be retrieved at a later date, staying with it now would lead her to her death.

Tsubaki looked down at the slight gleam emitting off the gild trim on her blue shield. It reminded her of the fun she had sledding down and hill, something that she would always cherish as the was her first and only time going sledding. Right then and there Tsubaki vowed she would go back to floor eleven and sled on her crappy shield until it broke.

"It's you again, isn't it, I will get revenge for what happened last time." Volrath said once he saw Tsubaki standing on top of his pets head. He readied his claws and then ran at her.

Tsubaki grinned, he was still not adept at one to one combat without his dragon. Volrath's footwork was sloppy and his stance contained practically no thought what so ever. Volrath unleashed his full flurry of rage and power on to Tsubaki, who easily blocked all of Volrath's attacks with simple movements of her shield.

Tsubaki slammed the shield into Volrath which made him completely lose his balance. Then Tsubaki swung her right arm at the boss with the ulna facing towards the boss. Her ulna hit the boss directly in the head making him fall of the dragon. Tsubaki jumped after and used her sonic leap to speed into him mid flight. Tsubaki's shield hit Volrath right in the neck, killing him instantly. After she not so gracefully landed on the ground the last attack bonus popped up on her screen. She looked at for a couple seconds then closed the pop up.

"What did you get?" Ran asked her seemingly coming out of nowhere.

"Nothing useful." Tsubaki stated.

XXXX

Happy New Years! Hopefully 2017 is better than 2016, I don't know about you all but 2016 wasn't the best of years

To each of everyone of you all I thank you for simply clicking on this terrible fan fiction and reading it, It truly means a lot!

If you have anything you would like to see happen with this fan-fic in the new year please let me know, I'd be happy to oblige.

Have a wonderful and fantastic Year!

-Kirk


	103. Foundation

May 5, 2023

-Kirito-

Kirito dropped his sword down onto the human lizard that he had just cut the legs off of. The last duel couldn't really even be described as such. Kirito had faced enemies ten floors higher with incredible sword skills and gimmicks. This floor fifteen lizard wouldn't even scratch Kirito let alone make the duel hard.

The pop up appeared in front of him and it immediately lost any kind of interest it would have had otherwise. Kirito was down on the fifteenth floor since he needed to get a new coat. He had gotten his last coat on floor thirteen which was a very overdue exchange. But since his coat was from a rarer drop he needed rather extraneous materials for Ashley to use.

Since the pop up didn't have what he had needed he just dismissed it. Kirito had been going at this one for quite awhile as it was even more rare than the coat he was currently wearing. But this was part of playing an rpg or specifically a jrpg as Sword Art Online was one. Though it was drastically different from anything else than any of it's predecessors.

Kirito resheathed his sword and started to walk around once again. He was in no rush as he had all day to find the one item and it was only ten o'clock in the morning. Though the time didn't really all that much anyways since he had kinda been searching for the item for the last couple of days with barely any luck. He had only found one of three that he had needed to obtain.

He continued to wander around the open dungeon, which over the last couple of days he had taken a liking to. It was mainly just a huge open field that spanned across the plans of floor fifteen. Though the plains were more like rolling hills with pathways littered throughout the hills. Inside these were most of the humanoid lizards though some did wander out into the light.

The humanoid lizards went much of nuisance compared to the other things that Kirito had to face on the higher floors. It was like a breath of fresh air, something that rehabilitated him from the usual endless grind for the levels. Thanks to them not liking the light most of them just stayed in the shade without much interaction with Kirito, unless Kirito attacked them. Which Kirito of course did but it was of fresh air to be the aggressor in the situation.

Skill level was practically nonexistent compared to Kirito's. It was incredibly easy for Kirito to simply counter the lizards scratches and claws then kill with a simple counter attack. Kirito didn't even need to use some of his more complicated combo's of his stance, and there was quite a few of them.

Over the last month or so Kirito had been honing his skill past just level, he was improving his techniques further than he had ever imagined when he first logged into the game. His technique was actually quite different as it utilized a bunch of simple blocks and attacks but it utilized complex combos when pure power and skill wasn't enough.

This was rarely the case as most mobs didn't stand a chance against his usual strikes yet alone his thought out ones. Though he did someone times get a small chuckles from overwhelming a mob with an insane combo, which usual one shot them with a hundred percent-ish accuracy.

All of his attacks followed one principle. Be fast and agile but also accurate and devastating. To accomplish this Kirito needed unbelievable amounts of control on the way his sword moved, one slight uncalculated movement could easily turn into a lopsided inaccurate attack that didn't have much strength behind it.

Kirito also gave his stance a certain amount of unpredictability, though he hasn't gotten the chance to test out how good it was. If there was one thing he learn from his duel with Saffi, it was that unpredictability could be the difference from winning and losing. Kirito doubt that his skill was lower than Saffi's but she was able to outsmart and outmaneuver him to a victory.

This wasn't a loss to Kirito however, as he hadn't dueled someone in a while and he needed to test his abilities. In addition to that Saffi posed a different challenge other than the ones he had faced in the future. Her strategy was nothing like Kirito could have ever imagined and was harder than he had ever expected. As it had played her strengths as a person rather than her strength as a swordswomen.

Kirito continued to wander around the dungeon mindlessly. The spawning rates in the dungeon were relatively same throughout the dungeon which made the act of grinding the lizards even more simple. This was prefered to his usually grind at the highest floor in one by himself. Something that other front line runners couldn't say the did as it was extremely dangerous.

However, this never stopped him, he needed to get stronger and the only way to do that was to push himself. He need to be stronger, smarter and faster. Nothing could even begin to phase because if it did then he would definitely have trouble with the final boss of the game. Which he intended to defeat; he would make sure he was there to strike the final blow onto the floor one hundred boss.

Kirito brandish his at a lone lizard. Unfortunately this lizard was out in the sunlight by itself. It would meet it's end with Kirito's blade, just like many other mobs had before it. Kirito launched himself at the lizard with amazing speed. It was comparable to Asuna's speed but only just. It wasn't as fast nor did it have the sustain the Asuna's did.

But just as Saffi did to him Kirito played to his strengths. That being his strength and reflex time. This allows him to make an incredible defense without prioritizing it. Which is exactly what Kirito did, he had little regard for defense but strength and reflex time allowed for easy and effective blocks.

This made whatever the lizard completely ineffective. The lizard lunged towards Kirito with it's claws extended out towards him in attacking formation. Kirito easily twisted his wrist to cleave the lizard's head straight off. However like players humanoid mobs had increased defense around the neck but this didn't slow down Kirito's blade. Kirito's blade easily went through lizard's neck without slowing down even in the slightest.

Yet another pop up appeared in front of him, and yet again Kirito lost interest immediately. He hadn't expected anything to come out of the one kill but he can be hopeful. Kirito flipped his sword until he was holding it like he usually did then sheathed his sword. Looking around Kirito choose to walk in the direction of the tree. The tree provides shade, so maybe a mob was under there. He doubted this but this was one of the few times he got use his brain in the easy dungeon. Just as he started to make his way over to the tree he heard a scream.

He had heard many times before, such as in the boss raids but the one the perpetuated itself in Kirito's mind was that time in floor twelve's dungeon. When he had saved a girl from a boss just to have her turn around and save him. It was the sound of fear, or more specifically fear of death. A type of scream that he knew all to well. A type of scream that would also make him run towards it. A type of scream that he hoped nobody would have to make.

XXXX

To all of you who were here in the beginning, thank you. This was my new year's resolution for 2016 and if I can say so myself I did not quit it!

I plan on continuing this Fan-fic till I finish everything I want to do with these Characters, and that is something that will take awhile.

For all of you who have been here from the beginning, thank you for your support.

For those of you who are new, thank you for joining us, and trust me there is still a long ways to go!

Next chapters will be up in a week

-Kirk


	104. Further

May 5, 2023

-Kirito-

The scream was high pitched, most likely came from a female. Though he could see it coming from an intense voice crack. In a life or death situation you really don't have a sense of whether or not your voice is going to crack. But if a male did it then Kirito would expect that male to be about his age or maybe a little bit younger.

Kirito didn't spend time readying his sword or figuring out which way to go. He knew which way he needed to go and knew that his sword would only slow him down once it was out. Taking off at his top speed he made it to the top of one of the hills. Stopping for barely a second, Kirito saw almost everything around him. His sight was only hindered by the amount of time spent looking.

There was only on thing of note in Kirito's vision, or should he say five. A group players were fighting a bunch of lizards in the hill across from his. It didn't seem as though they were in immediate danger anymore, but Kirito knew that that could change on the flip of a dime. Kirito took off towards the players but he observed their situation.

Out of the five players four of them were armed. On of the taller male's didn't have any weapons though it seemed as though he was still helping out with his bare hands. Though it was painfully obvious to Kirito that he didn't have any unarmed skill as he wasn't using them. Though the taller male wasn't the only one who seemed to not be in the best of situations.

The one in yellow was collapsed onto the ground and was dodging a barrage of attacks. He was doing relatively fine but it wasn't the best of situations. Kirito saw that the other two males were doing perfectly fine, well just a lot better than the the other two. It seemed as though they were overwhelmed but they were still giving a good fight. Kirito also noticed that it seemed they were the only two that had killed in of the mobs.

Hiding behind a very large shield was the last member of the group. She was a girl or more accurately a frightened girl. She wasn't doing all that well though she was utilizing her shield to it's full potential by keeping three lizards off of her at the same time, though she wasn't doing anything in terms of progress. She would eventually falter and she would loss the defense that was keeping her alive.

Kirito was running at speeds he didn't think he could maintain for as long as had. He could feel his legs ache but Kirito didn't intend for it to slow him down or make him stop. He needed to be stronger, smarter, and faster. He needed to preserver and if that meant running through pain that would probably inflict last damage if he was in the real world then so be it.

After about thirty more seconds of sprinting Kirito made it to the players. They were in even more dire situation then they had been but Kirito didn't have time to dwell on it. He would act on it, he would help players out that possibly even hated him or better yet wanted him dead. But this thought would never stop him because if they hate him that doesn't mean he needs to them.

"You guys fall back and regroup, I can take from here." Kirito stated once he got in the middle of all of them. He then proceeded to killing most of the mobs that were actively attacking them so that they could get away. This worked out extremely well as all three who were fighting back lizards were able to fall back.

"Thank you." One of the players said to Kirito. It was definitely masculine, but was also out of breath. It was most likely one of the two tall males who still had their weapons, though it could be the one that had lost his weapon. Kirito raised his left hand in acknowledgment then readied his sword, prepared to take on the swarming lizards.

Kirito twisted his wrist violently and sharply to produce a small horizontal right in front of him. This only scratched two of the lizards but it made the others back away. Kirito needed the mobs separate from each other in order to deal with semi-easily. Though he could one shot them he would rather not take a chance and get a low damage roll.

Kirito jumped back then lunged forward. This was to confuse the AI some bit as they would have to keep track of him. When dealing with large amounts of enemies Kirito usually kept moving as if he stayed in one place they would be able to attack him before he could attack them. Though it was usually how he dealt with one enemy, having four come at you at one time was not prefered.

His blade landed in one of the humanoid lizard's chest, resulting in a one hit kill. Kirito had expected this but didn't anticipate it. In his situation he can't assume anything, even though the he was at a far higher level than any of the mobs on this floor they could still deal a good amount of damage if they got a direct hit.

Without even blinking an eye, Kirito swung his sword diagonally on his left to decapitate another lizard but more were on top of him. He only had time to use his sword a shield before one of them attacked him. Of course his sword didn't protect him all that much but after he launch a horizontal right through the humanoid lizard's stomach it was quite a good job.

Kirito jumped backwards to avoid all of the incoming attacks from about seven lizards. Though he did need a drop from the lizards he could come back later, he already did what he had need to do. The group of players had already regrouped and were doing much better than they had been. Plus is not like the lizard's could catch up with him once he ran away. He was much faster and in addition to that he wasn't afraid of the light.

Once both of his feet touched the ground, Kirito ran away from the mobs until he didn't have their aggro. This brought him close the the group of players that he had just saved. After he sheathed his sword he walked over to the players. They looked as though they were doing fine, all but one of them looked pretty exhausted while the last one was standing straight and tall.

"Thank you, We our forever in your debt." The one who wasn't exhausted said. He also bowed after he finished speaking. Though he was the only one to do this Kirito saw that all of the others still appreciated him. Kirito smiled and then bowed his head slightly

"There must be someway we can thank you… How about we buy you dinner?" The brown haired male asked.

"No thank you, I'm fine." Kirito stated with a smile still on his face.

"Please I insist, it's the least we could do for our savior." He stated as he bowed once again but this time it was further, the type of bow you give when asking for a father's permission.

XXXX

Are you ready for the start of episode three, I know I am!.

Truth be told I've been ready ever since the end of chapter 5 but I had some things to take care of.

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter!

Next chapter will be out momentarily!

-Kirk


	105. Follow

May 5, 2023

-Kirito, Keita, Sachi, Ducker, Tetsuo, Sasamaru-

Kirito felt like scratching his head. Above all else he did not know what to do, especially with his hands. During his time in the real world he was really awkward when it came to talking with people who could actually carry out a normal conversation but alas he didn't have this luxury. Though when he talked to people who were just as shy and awkward it felt normalish, just normal enough not to slow down the conversation.

However, inside the world of Sword Art Online like many other people, Kirito was less shy. Less reserved and more upfront, just like his swordplay. Some people might say that Kirito is the better version of him, Kazuto would have to say something else. He was merely the same person just under a different lense, a lense where his strengths were a lot more apparent than his flaws.

But, unluckily for him his flaws were quite apparent in his current situation. He had barely said much of anything to any of the players. Besides accepting the invitation to eat dinner with them he had only spoken a few choice times. Almost all of them were answering questions, which were from the male players.

Kirito could tell that the female player was taciturn. She hadn't said a single word to him and had only spoken once. Most of the other players talked, and they talked a lot. Most of were very dynamic in their speech patterns often leaving almost no silence in the conversation. To add to that the knife user is particular dynamic, choosing to flail his knife around a lot. This usually resulted in his knife landing in the ground or in on his foot. It inflict more damage on himself unintentionally with his knife that Kirito had done in his whole entire time inside Aincrad.

He had also learnt one of their names during the random conversations that spurred on their way back to the town. Tetsuo was the name of the player he had learnt. Though he didn't actually know which player was Tetsuo though he could exclude two of them. The knife user was most likely not Tetsuo since he was the one to say the name, and if Kirito had to guess Tetsuo is a male name, not suited for the shy female.

Looking around his table he could see that the players were extremely close knit, he wouldn't be surprised if they were all apart of one guild. Sitting directly across from him was the player who had invited him to the dinner. He was talking with the other players but not as loud as any of the other members besides the girl.

Kirito picked up one of his pieces of chopsticks and started to twirl it around between his ring and middle finger. This was something that he had been able to do quite well in the real world however just did not have the ability to do it inside the game. Like most games his finger dexterity was pretty on point however that kind of didn't transfer over into the game.

His finger dexterity was the only thing left in the real world but he was grateful that his athleticism was. Though he had taken a bit of kendo in his younger years, he didn't really retain the body that it had built up. This wasn't to say he was fat or anything, it was just that he lacked the muscle that would be gained from physical activity.

While doing this he started to run his left hand through his hair while his right had picked up speed. This however, was not intentionally, quite frankly the opposite. He wanted his finger not to go to fast as he probably would launch the chopstick halfway across the room, and that he did. After about a couple seconds of twirling the chopstick pretty fast, it flew out of his hand and straight in between the knife user and the club user. Thankfully it didn't hit either of them.

"Wasn't me." Kirito instinctively defended himself. His eyes hand opened up to their full extent and he was trying to avoid their gaze. That was until they started to laugh, well most of them started to laugh. Kirito bit his tongue then showed a faint smile. Though it didn't make him feel less awkward than he already was.

"I guess we should include or savior more than have been." The male player in player stated with a wide smile.

"Told you we should have included him." The knife user stated sarcastically.

"You didn't say anything!" The male player sighed then looked at over at Kirito after giving the knife user a shot of annoyance. "I'm Keita, nice to meet you." He said as he bowed. His right hand was underneath of him while he had his left arm behind his back. He was about to say something but he was once again cut off by the knife user.

"And we're the Moonlit Black Cats!" The knife user said as his arms shot out from his sides. Though this wasn't exactly the best thing to do as he was standing next to two players, one on his left and another on his right. The knife user's dominant hand went straight into one of the taller male's lower chin. Kirito watched as the smile quickly disappeared off the shorter peer and an apoplectic face grew on the player in green.

"That is it, YOUR GETTING IT!" The player said as he materialized his two handed spear and started to chase after the smaller knife user. But he had already traveled halfway across the restaurant. However this didn't stop the enraged player, he gripped his spear with his left hand and took off at the knife user. Kirito smiled as the two players had a rather loud quarrel.

"That's Ducker, and the one that is chasing him is Sasamaru." Keita said as he pointed to the knife user. Kirito looked up to see the taller player standing behind him with postured being completely straight. Placing both feet onto the ground, Kirito stood up and turned around to face him.

"Your group sure is tight." Kirito acknowledged with a slight grin. He had never anything close to the comradery that he saw in the five players surrounding him. The people that he could have had the comradery with were either dead or probably wanted absolutely nothing to do with. It was nice seeing such a tight knit group.

"Yeah, We are all a part of our school's PC Research club before the game, but now we are all apart of the same guild." Keita showed his most sincere smile while he spoke, it didn't even waver when he said but.

"It must be nice to be that close." Kirito said with a half smile. He hadn't meant any of it to have a condescending tone, much the opposite. Though jealousy is a natural emotion to all human beings, Kazuto didn't have any at the moment. He had nothing but the best of intentions in his last actions and words but Kirito could tell as the last word was tip of his tongue. This would most likely result in sympathy but Kirito wouldn't have enough time to stop it as he could tell that Keita had already fabricated his next sentence.

"If you don't mind me asking, what's your level?" Keita asked the beater. This made Kirito let out a mental sigh, for two reasons. One was that Keita would make Kirito feel better which of course didn't happen but now Kirito would be faced with an incredibly hard decision. Lie and face the consequences if they find out or tell the truth and get idolized.

One of the few things that is truly personal inside the game is your level. Kirito didn't know if he wanted to reveal this. He was currently level forty three which he was almost sure that he was the highest level if not tied for it. This was largely due to his never ending experience grinding, which he had to admit it wasn't the best for health. Kirito knew he would have to break a soon. "Around level twenty." Kirito said while looking down at his hands.

"Really I would expected you to be a lot higher." Keita stated as he scratched his head. "I am the leader of this guild and if I may, I would like to invite you to our guild." Keita stated as he bowed to Kirito. "Sachi is having a hard time transitioning to being a forward and I would like to you help her with it." Keita stated while he stayed bowed.

Kirito was silent for probably way to long as he contemplated on what to do. To say yes or to say no, those were the options. He didn't want to say no but he also didn't know what yes entitled to. His hands and eyes lay motionless while Keita was still bowing. Kazuto couldn't bring himself to say no, like he had thought many times he really needed a break. "Sure."

XXXX  
I think I'm going to have a lot of fun with these characters!

Episode three was my favorite episode in the anime by far and I intend to do it justice.

If you have any concerns about how I am handling this episode, please tell me!

Thank you all for support this Fan-fic, it truly means alot to me!

Next chapter will be up in a week

-Kirk


	106. Friends

May 7, 2023

-Kirito and Sachi-

Kirito looked at Sachi with his hand on his face. He could tell that she hadn't been using a shield for long as her stance was very unsteady and unsure of herself. Even her spear hand wasn't all that steady, which wasn't good. This wouldn't stop Kirito as she was half the reason he joined the Moonlit Black Cats, he would teach her.

"Okay, let's go into the dungeon, I'd like to see how you deal the monsters." Kirito stated as he looked at Sachi with as much confidence as he could muster. Maybe some could shake off to the shy girl. He raised his hand and pointed into towards the dungeon entrance. Sachi nodded slightly then headed into the dungeon.

Keita had given them the day to train or more like a day for Kirito to evaluate Sachi. Yesterday they had went to a dungeon and just had fun, well that's how Kirito would describe it. Though every other member of the Moonlit Black Cats would say that they were experienced grinding, Kirito would beg to differ.

His usual experience grinding session went on for almost the whole entire day. The only time he wasn't inside the dungeon when when he was sleeping which albeit wasn't that much. Kirito didn't really have anyone to talk to and it actually made it pass by a lot easier. Most of his sessions he really didn't remember much specific as nothing really ever happen and Kirito prefered this. However, the Moonlit Black Cats had a much different way of doing things.

Their way of doing things actually was a lot less efficient than Kirito's but he had to admit it was a lot more enjoyable. It felt like he was inside of a game not just a bunch trails of death. Though they were significantly shorter than what he did but it felt as though they were soo much more event full.

Kirito hadn't been apart of their usual group at all but he could tell that they had been through alot together, in and outside the game. They trusted each other more than anything, more than Kirito had ever trusted someone before. The type of interaction Kirito saw with them was something that took years to obtain but they had done it before they even graduated high school.

Stretching, Kirito looked ahead to see that a monster had spawn in. The Moonlit Black Cats may have more than enough comradery but their skills were lacking. That was Kirito's job, he needed to help them improve and in turn he was apart of their guild. This of course wasn't the deal Keita had brokered but it is what Kirito thought. He wouldn't fit into their comradery but being apart of special makes you special.

"Sachi fight this like you would usually do." Kirito stated as he caught up with her. "We're on level twelve you should be fine if it hits you a couple times, I step in if you are having an exceptionally hard time, got it." Kirito stated to the shy girl. He saw a slight nod in her head as she turned around to face the mob. She brought her shield close to her body and started to walk towards the mob.

The mob in question was just a usual lizard of this floor. One of the smaller ones at that. When he was grinding on this floor the lizards usually went down to two a strike or two. Their offensive capabilities are every limited but they are able to attack. Most of their attacks include jumpings towards the player but if you find yourself across a lizard big enough to actually attack with it's claws, that's when the floor got dangerous.

But Kirito doubted they would journey across one of the rare lizards as Kirito didn't come across them often during his experience grinding. He would most likely help Sachi if they came across one. This wasn't one however, so he would wait and watch Sachi take on the lizard. Though they had went on a dungeon run yesterday Kirito hadn't been paying attention to Sachi all that much as he would get more than enough time now.

Kirito exhaled. Now he could see what Sachi could or more specifically what she couldn't. His eyes glued to every interket movement that Sachi made in her before duel with the lizard. She made a wide horizontal that miss the lizard but it did make the lizard move backwards. It was a good use of her spear. If she had been swift enough she may have been able to use a linear to kill it but she didn't take the opportunity.

The lizard then jumped at her with it's small claws outstretched towards her. She almost instantly used the shield as protection from the lizard. Kirito would have used the spear to divert its path but Sachi used her shield to shield herself from the oncoming attack. With Sachi's choice the lizard ended up bouncing off of her shield then back onto the ground.

Though Sachi did she herself but not without some ramifications. Her balance wasn't good enough to keep her in balance when the force of the lizard's impact was added. Her left foot went of the ground while her right desperately tried to keep her not too off balance. Thankfully, her right foot one and her left foot regain its positioning on the ground. This had made her lose the opening she had created with her shield, something that could have ended the little skirmish.

Sachi immediately brought the shield to back to her body and waited for the lizard to attack. Since they were on floor twelve the lizard didn't have any gimmicks or long ranged attacks, it just simply pounced at her again. This time Sachi used her spear to move the lizard away and out of in front of her. Though her offensive didn't kill the lizard it was pretty efficient counter and would have killed it if she was higher level.

She turned to the lizard as soon as it hit the ground. Taking the opportunity to strike Sachi used her spear to attack the lizard with one short and defined stab. This lizard easily jumped over it but it seemed as though that was the plan all along. The lizard jumped straight up similar to how a scared cat would. Flicking her wrist up, she easily sliced the lizard in half and into an infinite amount of tiny blue shards.

Kirito walked up to her as she closed her eyes. It was clear to Kirito that she wasn't used to fighting alone but given the assignment she did fairly well. Not passable by all means but what she was doing wrong could be fixed and it wouldn't take all that long. She had a good starting, nothing that was too bad but she didn't have anything that was overly bad.

"Good?" Kirito asked once he was next to her. If she said what he didn't really know what he would saw, the question was really just to make sure she was fine but he didn't want to ask if she was okay. That felt a little to teacher talking to student for him.

"I'm doing good." She stated as she turned to see Kirito was near her.

"You have no overly bad habits and the ones you do have are easily fixable." Kirito stated while looking straight into Sachi's eyes. "May I explain?" Kirito asked as he slightly bowed his head towards Sachi. He raised his head without linger much and as soon as he did he saw a slight nod yes come from Sachi.

"Well firstly your footing position in your stance isn't that balanced. Your standing completely straight while that may be good for posture it's not the best fro fighting. You want your dominant foot to be in the back, this will make it so you don't fall of balance as easily." Kirito stated as he position his feet to show her. "Also you want to dodge some of the mobs attacks. The shield does provide for an amazing defense but you don't want to be your only defense. Keep yourself moving so that your shield isn't tanking to many hits." Kirito informed the shy girl.

"Anything else?" She asked with a small voice.

"Yes just one. Don't be afraid of the mobs, remember your the one with the pointy stick." Kirito stated with a slight smirk.

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Hope you all enjoyed this chapter!

Thank you to all how have followed, favorited, and reviewed

Next chapter will be up in a few

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	107. Flashback

May 14, 2023

-Kirito, Keita, Sachi, Ducker, Tetsuo, Sasmaru-

"Let'sa go!" Ducker shouted as he jumped in front of all of the other players of his guild. Both of his hands were proudly on his hips as he looked up towards the sky. Kirito couldn't see his face but over the last couple of days he could tell that Ducker must be sporting a grin of sorts. If he had been more friendly with the guild he would have smacked in the head as he walked by but he did not. However, Tetsuo, their other forward did.

"No one cares." Tetsuo stated as he walked past Ducker. This earned a couple of chuckles from the other guild members and gave Ducker a pouty face. He dipped his head downwards then started to slowly shuffle forward while muttering something underneath his breath. Kirito knew this was an act, like most things he did a followed the rest of the guild, leaving Ducker behind. After a short while Ducker stopped his act and caught up with the other members as they made their way through the dungeon.

They were on floor twelve, the underground dungeon or The Tunnels as nickname by Argo when he last talked to her about these floors. These dungeons were a bunch of connecting tunnels that lead to somewhat small caverns but the caverns were enormous when compared to the tunnels.

Kirito remembered these dungeons vividly as he had a couple of memories in them but one of them perpetuated itself into his mind. It was just after Coper had died when he had ventured into this dungeon for the first time. At the time he and Coper had been grinding the floor ten dungeon, one that they both knew incredibly well.

Kirito's first time into floor twelve was directly after Coper had died. He had been told by Argo that this floor's dungeons were some of the hardest in the game at that point. Though it probably didn't stand true a the current moment for him, it probably pose an incredible challenge to the other members of his guild especially Sachi.

It's not like she was bad at fight quite the contrary. If she trained hard and long Kirito could see her being a front liner. This was the same for all of them though the only one he knew for sure was her since he had spent more time with her more than any of the others. But there was something stopping her.

If Kirito hadn't known any better he would have never figured out what was wrong but after awhile of thinking he figured it out what was stopping her. She was afraid of something, Kirito didn't quite what but he was sure that she was. There was almost no other reason she would fight the way she did. Reserved yet panicked.

Looking ahead he saw Tetsuo swiftly despatch a lizard. Standing not to far behind them was Sachi, their other forward. Kirito was kindof a forward as he would be in the front but only if Sachi and Tetsuo were struggling. But for the mean time he was hanging back near Keita, Sasamaru, and Ducker, who were both support though they had close ranged combat weapons.

Tetsuo was incredibly efficient when dealing with few enemies. His maneuverability was excellent and he knew how to counter most attacks. He was light, swift, and accurate with his club even though it wasn't the fastest weapon. In fact most weapons are faster than a club and the shield that Tetsuo used didn't help his speed.

Kirito would even go far to say that the shield was more a hindrance to Tetsuo than help but he didn't want to chance anything just yet. However, the shield didn't go unused as even though it didn't maximize Tetsuo's power it. Unlike Sachi, he used his shield to amount offenses that had more defense than Kirito ever gave to his attacks. This allowed him to break impressive offenses with ease that Kirito would have found relatively hard.

However, when facing more than two enemies he had an exceptionally hard time. Since he used his shield as a secondary weapon more than a shield he had a hard time keeping enemies off him when he became overwhelmed. His usual response to getting overwhelmed was to either ran away or to make wide horizontals in front of him. This however usually leaves his back open for attacks.

This was easily compensated for by Sachi presences as she helped to keep mobs off of him. Kirito could see why he had needed to switch Sachi to being a forward. Tetsuo was for more productive with her than he probably ever was by himself. Though Keita hadn't made the right call for who to transition to forward, he did make the right call to give Tetsuo some help.

They continued to walk through the dungeon for awhile until the reached the largest clearing yet. On their way there Kirito observed mainly Sachi and Tetsuo dispatch enemies but he did see the other members join in at times. Though the other members of the guild mainly focused on finding things off the beat and path. Which is something Kirito never thought to do, besides he no need for most of things they found as most were just things to sell for col. But Kirito could see that for a small guild all the cash was important.

"In there is the dungeon boss, be prepared for an attack any minute know." Keita stated after they all regrouped near the entrance to the large clearing. This got Kirito's mind running as he had never ran into a dungeon boss during his time in Aincrad. Even with the extra time in the beta he had never come across a dungeon boss. Though he had ran into something similar in this particularly dungeon before.

In his last couple days on the front lines there was a slight conflict in the front lines. It didn't interfere with Kirito as he wasn't a part of a guild nor did he regularly attended the field boss raids. The field boss of floor twelve wasn't different from the others as it was inside a dungeon. This was probably due to the fact that there was nowhere outside of the one town that wasn't a dungeon. In fact the entire floor was a dungeon.

The front lines decided not to face the field boss officially as it was more trouble than the reward. Not only was the clearing to small to fit the usual amount of players at the time but also the tunnels made it incredibly hard to find and long to get to. Though Argo's map did help it just didn't make for all the extra weight on that particular boss battle. It was the field boss of this floor, not a dungeon boss. In fact there was no such thing as a dungeon boss.

Kirito brandished his sword as he took out of his sheath. He had faced this boss once before and he lost. Just lost didn't explain how much he failed, he utterly lost. He was overwhelmed with emotion out the time and couldn't channel it correctly. But this wasn't why he remembered the event, someone had died to the boss and he wasn't able to do anything. Her death was the unfortunate result of his failure. A mistake he needed to atone for, one that he was about make right.

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Remember him from like chapter eighties? How about like in the fifties?

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapters will be up in a week!

See you next time!

-Kirk


	108. Firm

May 14, 2023

-Kirito, Keita, Sachi, Ducker, Tetsuo, Sasmaru-

Kirito gripped his sword tightly. He had to tell Keita what he knew. There was no reason to but the guild in danger just because he wanted the monster dead. With that motive Kirito could just come back once he had some free time. He couldn't endanger the guild, even though he had just meet them he could tell that they had already attached themselves to his heart.

"Keita, there is no such thing as a dungeon boss, that has to be a field boss." Kirito stated once he caught up to Keita. In order to keep his lie a secret he couldn't tell them how he knew it was one but he could just use reasoning if Keita questioned him. But the look on Keita's face didn't show any signs of questioning as he still looked confident as ever.

"If we are going to join the front lines we'll have to face one of these eventually, why not it be now?" Keita asked with confidence. Kirito didn't respond as he knew the question Keita had just asked was better answered with silence. He bit his tongue. There was no way he could convince Keita to back away from the boss but could help them take it on, after all he was a member of the guild.

Kirito dashed his way into the cavern. They we already engaging the boss, Akin, Seasoned Broodling. He could tell that they were prepared to face this boss. The usual laid back and sporadic Ducker had donned a serious face. He usually served as the group's moral booster, being uplifting when no one else was, even if that meant others got annoyed at him.

Ducker was incredibly swift on his feet, being able to dodge attacks that would have hit Kirito million times over. Surprisingly he currently had the aggro and wasn't have much difficulty whatsoever. It was a little nerve wracking watching him weave through the fire and the boss's claws. Though his knife was incredibly short and provided for no protection, Ducker still managed to block the boss's claws.

During their last dungeon, Ducker hadn't done much. Kirito would have called him a dead weight if he wasn't so darn vibrant. But seeing him now, Kirito could tell why he was a thief class. Almost no other class had the swiftness and maneuverability of the class. His skill was nothing like Kirito had ever seen.

But even with his swiftness he still couldn't get in many hits that meant much of anything. The giant boss lizard had a semi-tough hide which made Ducker's dagger not the best weapon to fight against as he had a hard time piercing it. Thankfully he wasn't alone as he had a whole guild behind but one player in particular more than the others.

Sasamaru acted as Ducker's support though he was the one doing the majority of the damage. His way of fighting was incredibly simple everything down to his usual stance and footwork. This made Sasamaru's way of fight more effective than it would have been with complexity. Kirito could summarize Sasamaru's way of fighting in one line: One Shot, One Kill.

Though that was the sniper's creed and well Sasamaru wielded and spear which was very much not a gun. In every other time Kirito had seen him fight he was usual killing off weaker enemies or finishing already damaged enemies. If his first attack wouldn't work it was likely that Sasamaru didn't do it. If he wasn't attacking then he was limiting the enemy's movement by basically being a roadblock. And he did it well.

But in the boss battle he had a much different role. Being as that it would be awhile until he would have a chance to do so. So instead of standing around and being a dead weight he decided to help the Thief player. He acted as a shield user but unlike most shield users, since he didn't have shield he could actually attempt to keep up with Ducker. That was met with various results but in the end it was able to take off some of the pressure.

Kirito ran at the boss. The rest of the guild had been attacking the with little results. Akin, Seasoned Broodling had a variety of three sixty degree attacks in addition to its melee attacks. This made the the moonlit black cats continuously have to move if they didn't want to get damaged. The problem was that they weren't providing enough pressure but Kirito could manage that part.

Pointing his sword directly at he the boss, Kirito fell into his stance. Just as Ducker had two personalities so did Kirito, though his weren't as bipolar. Usual his face was lost all of it's girlish features. Now supporting his stern face Kirito started to run at the boss once again. Thankfully he didn't get the aggro, at least not before his sword cut the boss's skin. He stopped just before running it the boss swung one large lateral. Kirito didn't think that his sword would have broke Akin's skin but it did it without much resistance.

The reason that he thought that he wouldn't break it's skin was that he hadn't switched his sword out for a while. In fact both Tetsuo's weapon and Ducker's were both better than his which had surprised Kirito as his was from a last attack bonus. His white long sword had stayed his standard weapon since floor twelve. In fact this sword was is second to last gift from Coper. Even if he would stop using it as his main weapon he would never throw it away, at least not while in the game.

As soon as his sword broke through the Akin's tough skin he gained the boss's aggro. He ducked into a roll once Akin was looking at him. With doing this he dodged the boss's left claw then the boss's fire breath. He jumped out of his roll and swung his sword horizontally. This deflected the boss's right claw away from Kirito. Once he was back on to his two feet he fell into his defensive stance.

Though he could probably use his offensive stance to fight Akin one versus one he would actually deal damage this way. Kirito knew that he would do a ton of damage, way more than any level twenty could ever manage. He didn't need to do damage as he was sure that the Moonlit Black Cats could deal the damage and kill it.

Kirito's defensive didn't look defensive at all to the untrained eye as his sword was left off the side. Most people would say that his sword wasn't defending anything but the smart ones would say that it was defending everything, because it was. Kirito left his sword in his right hand pointing diagonally downwards. He could easily twist his wrist upwards and deflect any weapon that was near him.

Swinging his sword Kirito deflected both of the boss's claws with ease but the boss's mouth was actually much more dangerous. Since his sword couldn't deflect fire Kirito would have to dodge and fall back into his stance which could be potentially dangerous. Even though he was level forty four the field boss could still easily kill him.

Kirito fell into a mechanical way of fight, using the same type of parries to deflect attacks, while ducking underneath the fire. He didn't need to pressing his advantage or adapt as he was facing a relatively low level AI nothing compared to mobs in his usual grinding spots. As for pressing his advantage the guild was doing that nicely as they had effectively killed the boss without gaining the boss's aggro.

After the boss was killed, Kirito dropped his sword in exhaustion. Even though he wasn't having trouble his usual attack method was exhausting as his stance was power based. Using his strength to break his foes stance. Even though he didn't have to cross swords with the boss as it didn't have swords, he still had to use his strength to deflect the boss's claws. Kirito looked down to his legs will the other players celebrated their achievement until Sasamaru walked up to him.

"Dude, you insane, where did you learn to do that?" He asked enthusiastically as he picked up Kirito's sword and handed it to him.

"I did kendo back in the real world." Kirito stated. Though it wasn't entirely a lie Kirito still didn't feel good for kind of to Sasamaru.

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Aye that boss is finally killed!

Hope you all liked this chapter

Next chapter will be up in a few

Have a wonderful day

-Kirk


	109. Favorite

May 20, 2023

-Kirito and Sachi-

"You ready?" Kirito asked Sachi as he readied his sword. He had his sword held straight and pointing directly at Sachi head or rather the sport next to it. His dominant hand was just slightly above his head and diagonal to it so his sword wouldn't splice his head into two. His non dominant hand wasn't left hanging of in some non important area quite the contrary. Kirito had his left arm extended towards Sachi with his hand in knife formation.

This wasn't his usual stance nor something he would use in any other situation but this wasn't like any other situation he had ran across in his time. Kirito usual stance would most likely overwhelm Sachi with it's consistent power, strength, and flexibility. With his fallback stance he didn't provide any pressure of substantial form as it was basically his usual form but just defensive instead of offensive.

Kirito's two usual forms focused on his strengths and tried to put them in to situations where they could flourish. On the offensive he would use his amazing strength and near unparalleled reaction speed to gain the advantage. Once he had the advantage he would use certain thought out combos and attacks to give him the win.

While on the defensive Kirito would have the same plan though it would be more of attrition rather than skill and talent. Since his base strength was so high he could keep pace with his foes without using much energy. With his reaction speed he could set up a near impregnable defensive if his mind was set to it. In doing this he could gradually tire out the enemy while not tiring out himself.

This form however had a decent amount of flaws compared to his offensive. When concerning the AI and mobs this form did not do as it was supposed to as the computer wouldn't ever get tired. When fighting AI with this style he would mainly use it to stall while he attempted to find an opening. Since the way of combat wasn't applicable to mobs he didn't have much practice with it. In fact the most significant practice he had had with it was against Akin.

"Yes." Sachi stated as she gripped the shield even harder than she was already doing. Sachi moved the shield closer to, it was just barely not touch her chest. Her spear was in front of the shield crossing it diagonally. It was firm and unmoving, though it wasn't perfect her stance was a lot more sure of herself even if Sachi wasn't quite sure yet of herself. Even her feet where were Kirito had told Sachi to put them.

Her face wasn't quite as emotionless as Kirito's as he could see she was afraid but that wasn't a bad thing. Every emotion could be used to enhance the way fighting as long as they were used correctly. For instance her being afraid could make her more cautious then she would usually be which could in turn keep her alive. Kirito just choose not to let his emotions interfere even if they would help.

Kirito gripped his sword firmly with his right hand while he felt his left hand slow turn till his palm faced upwards. In the form he was about to use against Sachi he would be using both of his hands to grip his sword. The reason he didn't grip his sword with both hands to start out with was that it felt more naturally gripping his sword with one hand.

But he would have to have move his left hand to grip the sword eventually. This was not foreign to him as he did it occasionally while fighting. Most people would use the addition of a second hand to help steady the sword and add power but Kirito would only use it for one use. When he regularly fought he would use his left arm as a shield of sorts often in front of his torso, but he would be ready to move it at a moment's notice to his sword. With the addition of his left hand his attacks became more precise which in some scenarios was needed but not in the vast majority.

However, the style of fighting he was about to present to Sachi would be vastly different and foreign to him. Kirito would have to think out each and every movement and make each on count. He needed to be precise, though each attack wasn't important it was the combination of attacks that was. When he usual fought the majority of moves just came to him naturally but Kirito knew that with him thinking more he would needed to put more of his brain power into the present then he usually would.

Once his left palm was completely facing upwards Kirito retracted his left arm to a ninety degree angle while lower his fight hand and sword to his waist. Upon meeting up his left hand gripped the sword hilt firmly as his knees bent, leaving the wait of his body in his left leg. Kirito did this in the matter of a second and in the next second he pushed of the ground with his left leg and enacted a calculated lunge at Sachi.

Kirito knew that he would likely make Sachi stubble back if she blocked with her shield but he was surprised when she parried his strike with her spear. This made Kirito's sword drift to his right and Kirito immediately let go of it with his left hand. With his left had detached, Kirito made a hard and powerfully horizontal so that his sword would be back in his right. This connected with Sachi's shield and would have made her loss her balance if her feet weren't where they were supposed to be.

Now that his sword was back on his left, Kirito moved his left arm across his body and gripped the sword once again. He was going to produce a lateral that was aimed directly for her head but Sachi had already started to attack back. She had her spear high above her head and was already beginning to attack Kirito.

None of his short responses would do much of anything as Sachi's shield still covered most attackable areas. Kirito reverted into a defensive stance while he watched Sachi execute her attack. At the beginning of the attack she had the left side of her body facing Kirito but this wasn't for long as she was putting her weight into the attack.

Her waist began to twist as both her right leg and arm were moving at amazing speeds. Kirito had his sword above his head and braced himself for impact. Just before her right foot found its spot on the ground her spear collided with Kirito's sword. Felt his arm quiver slightly but then much more after her right foot was firmly on the ground.

Gripping the sword with both of his hands Kirito pushed Sachi's weapon off his own then swiftly turn both of his wrists into an attack. Using the momentum gained from his wrist movement, Kirito produced a downwards laterally that collided with Sachi's shield and disarmed her almost instantaneously. His left hand let go of his sword and his right hand and sword retraced the motion it had just taken but it in backwards. However Kirito's sword stopped as soon as it touched Sachi's right leg.

"You good?" Kirito asked as he retracted his sword and picked up Sachi's shield. Kirito wasn't asking about health or anything of the like as they were in a safe zone, he couldn't damage her unless they were in a official duel, which they weren't.

"Yeah." Sachi stated, just a tiny bit out of breath but nothing that would prohibit them from continuing.

"You did good, now let's see if you can do better." Kirito stated as he handed Sachi her shield. They continued to this for hours, Kirito continued to attacked and Sachi continued to block and parry. She didn't do all to well but Kirito got more of a feel of what she needed help in besides from being afraid of dying. By the time they were done it was past sunset and was every dark, all the rest of the guild was asleep in their separate rooms. Kirito bid Sachi a farewell for the night and closed his door behind him.

He didn't bother with locking, no one could kill him inside the town and he didn't have anything in the room worth stealing. He crawled in the bed and closed his eyes but couldn't fall asleep. This was usual he wasn't the best at falling to sleep right away, especially now that he was in the death game. If it was too much of a problem Kirito would go out and grind but he was to exhausted to do that tonight. It must have been hours or at least it felt like it when he heard someone at his door.

"Come in" Kirito said, completely awake.

"Sorry, I can't sleep." Sachi said as she opened the door. Kirito saw he grasping a pillow close to her chest. "Could I sleep in here tonight?" Sachi asked as she took one step into Kirito's room.

"Sure." Kirito stated as he laid back into his bed a closed his eyes. It was to late for him to think about where she was going to sleep before she climbed into his bed and laid down her pillow. Before Kirito could talk to her she was already under the covers and seemed as though she was asleep. It was too late for Kirito to bother with something as trivial as that so he rolled over onto his side and closed his eyes.

Even though they never talked or even moved that night, it had been Kirito's best sleep since the death game started. Maybe even longer than that.

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How'd you Like it?, I know I liked it!

Thank you to all who have followed, favorited and Reviewed!

Next chapters will be up in a week

Have a great and awesome week

-Kirk


	110. Debate

May 26, 2023

-Kirito, Keita, Sachi, Tetsuo, Sasamaru, Ducker-

Kirito eyes wandered started as he continued to hear the guilds constant bickering and arguing. Instead of rolling his eyes and tempting the possibility of one of them finding out that he really wasn't participating in the conversation he would rather observe the room and it's contents. Though the conversation that was spurring between his guild was quite interesting he still really didn't want to impede.

They were inside Tetsuo and Ducker's room and it couldn't be more plain. He hadn't been inside any of the other guild member's rooms beside his own, Kirito couldn't help but think that all the other rooms were like it. To their defense however they were renting out rooms in an Inn, they didn't own the rooms. This however, didn't help for Kirito's apartment on floor seventeen as it had nothing in it apart from the bare minimum.

The room didn't have any decor whatsoever, well besides from the usual items that came with the room. In fact if they had the same items that Kirito had in his room then they had actually taken some things down that they hadn't liked. Kirito however just left them in the room because he spent a lot less time in his room then all of the others.

In his days in the real world he didn't really sleep all that well due to the internet but thankfully there was no internet in the death game. Though it didn't help that Sword Art Online, the death game was part of the internet. Kirito had came to the conclusion that anything that dealt with the internet didn't really give him the best sleep in the world.

To be fair his problem now was completely different then his problems in the past. His problems in the past were mainly because of the fact he hadn't really wanted to go to bed. The internet has always been more enticing to him. Kirito's problem now was that the act of falling asleep was failing to work much more anymore. He had barely any sleep in the past couple of weeks or what felt like weeks since most days just blended together anyways.

Though since the last time he had fallen asleep he had actually gotten some real sleep, to be fair he did skip two nights or what felt to be separate days since then. However, two out of five was better than he had done in a couple of months so he counted that as a win. Scratching his head, Kirito continued to look around the room. Or; at least, you know... start actually observing the room the surrounding him instead of… delving into his thoughts.

Sitting across from him was Ducker who was just as loud and obnoxious as usual but he was actually contributing something of substance. Even if that something was most definitely extending the length of the surrounding argument into the event of the day, probably for all of the floors. Even if there was floor boss raid today, their conversation would be told throughout the floors of the outcome. There was problem however, Kirito didn't even know what the conversation was about.

All that he had known before hand was based on Ducker's vibrant and consistent pair of hands. Kirito ears could tell him that Ducker was a large piece of the conversation but if he was deaf his eyes could do the same. Not only did Ducker's voice carry throughout the room his hands were also a volatile force as he has 'accidentally' hit people with them.

Now that he was actually listening some bit to the conversation that was filling the room he could get a better grasp of the roles in the group of friends. Ducker was clown that took it a little too almost all of the time, but was usual bearable. Though to be fair he was always like that as he acted the same when they were out in the dungeons so Kirito should have been able to know that without even seeing the display that Ducker was showing currently.

Tetsuo was basically Ducker, just less Ducker. He was the echo that basically made the conversation unbearably long. Him and Ducker seemed to know exactly how to get off topic and make it last for awhile. While Ducker probably knows exactly what he is doing Kirito had to guess that Tetsuo didn't know exactly what he was doing. The only reason Kirito thought this was that Tetsuo was usually level headed when out in the dungeons.

Against them was Sasamaru and Keita with Sasamaru at the helm. Though Keita is the guild leader Kirito thought of that as they just needed someone there because the game said so not because there was a clear leader. To Keita benefit though, he was probably the least shy out of all of them, particularly against people he didn't as he was the only one to actually converse with Kirito when they took him out for dinner.

Keita seemed to get sidetracked by Tetsuo and Ducker more than Sasamaru did, however, Kirito couldn't really figure out why. When in the dungeons Keita knew which way to point the group to and he had a great sense of direction as even in the tunnels they never got lost. Sasamaru was definitely different from how he was when fighting.

Instead of being support Sasamaru took Keita role in the current conversation. He constantly tried to vere the conversation in the right way, though he wasn't always successful. The feats Kirito had heard Sasamaru accomplished facing Ducker and Tetsuo was quite exemplary. The Moonlit Black Cats wasn't the most serious guild, Sasamaru took them helm of being the serious person in the conversation.

From what Kirito had heard now he could gather what the conversation was about had he had a pretty reasonable solution. "Okay, may I provide my input?" Kirito asked once he found an opening in the conversation. This was the first time he had spoken since entering the room. With a slight shake of heads Kirito knew that he was welcomed to.

"Okay I think we should get a spear for either Sasamaru, Keita or Sachi to use." Kirito stated easily and swiftly. Without allowing Ducker or anyone else to butt in Kirito continued, "Ducker, Tetsuo and I already have weapons that above the rest, so we should even out everyone else before we make one person stronger than the others."

"All in favor of Kirito's proposition?" Sasamaru asked as he raised his hand. Both Sachi and Ducker raised their hand also while Tetsuo and Keita stayed still. "Majority wins, should I go buy a spear?" Sasamaru asked as he stood up and started to head for the door. He was stopped just before making it out of the room.

"I would like to help you in buying the spear." Keita stated as he grabbed Sasamaru's arm. Sasamaru smiled and nodded and continued to head for the door while Keita turned around and spoke once again. "Sachi would you like to come?" Keita asked. Without any words, Sachi swiftly and nicely declined Keita question. Without any other words both Kirito and Sachi exited the room.

Kirito made his way to his room and walked in leaving the door open behind him. Once walking in he looked towards one of the paintings on the wall and took it down. In the weeks he had stayed in his room he had never thought of taking it down though he absolutely despised it. Looking around the room he tried to find more decorations the he didn't like but instead he found Sachi standing at the door. Before she could even open her mouth he invited her in.

"Thank you I couldn't build up the courage to speak to them against their ideas." Sachi stated as she sat down on Kirito's bed. Kirito smiled and patted her on her back. Kirito knew that she was shy, it didn't take a genius to know that. Kirito collapsed onto the bed with his head hitting the pillow with a silent thud. Sachi did the same, however, she did it a lot more graceful.

"Were they always like this?" Kirito asked Sachi as he could his eyes.

"Yeah, back in our club they bickered and bickered throughout our meetings on how certain things worked." Sachi stated. Even though Kirito couldn't see her face he could tell that a wide smile had crossed his face. "I was usually able to stop them with showing the right way to do it but the questions in the game are open to opinion." Sachi stated as she rolled over to her side, her smile slightly diminished.

"Don't worry I'll be able to stop them." Kirito stated as he smiled. This made Sachi's wide smile reappear on her face.

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Sorry this was later than usual, but I had some other things to attend to

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter will be up in a few

Have a great week!

-Kirk


	111. Diversification

June 1, 2023

-Kirito, Keita, Sachi, Tetsuo, Sasamaru, Ducker-

Kirito swung his sword over his head in a circular motion so that when it came back down it would have a lot more speed and umph to the strike. While doing this his arm ruffled up his hair somewhat but Kirito wasn't one to keep hair in a neat fashion. Once his sword was directly behind him he swung both of his hands forward in an intense and fast motion. In doing this his sword instantly tore through the mob that was directly in front of him.

On the floor that the guild was on, one shots weren't the most common thing even for Kirito. This meant Kirito actually had to think about what he was doing, which wasn't something he had done in the past month. Usually the mobs he had faced with the guild required him to near nothing as he could easily dispatch them with a quick swing or slash. But over the last week they had climbed up six floors from where they had been.

They were on floor twenty three which was further than Kirito ever thought they would make it in the near future. Kirito thought that they may be able to make it to floor nineteen and was pleasantly surprised when they made it to floor seventeen but he was amazed that they had made it to floor twenty three. Kirito knew that the front lines had just cleared the floor thirty boss only a couple of days ago, now they tiny guild of the Moonlit Black Cats was only seven floors behind them.

Not did they change as a group each one of them conducted themselves in a more concise way, they knew what they want to get done. However, they didn't lose their comradery that had initially attracted Kirito to them. Though Kirito trained more Sachi than the rest of them he could already tell that the others were improving even if Kirito wasn't focusing on them. They knew how to learn from example and weren't afraid to make mistakes in practice.

Kirito looked around that the others in the guild a small smile grew across his face. Keita before entering the field dungeon had paired them up. In the case of something going wrong they would combine into three teams, with Kirito's teammate being Sasamaru. They others were doing well for themselves but Kirito was amazed at how far Sasamaru had already gotten.

Though it was true that he had probably the strongest member as his partner, he wasn't just tagging along. If he was left to fend for himself he would definitely be able to hold his own for at least a couple of minutes. Kirito could tell that not only was his stance different, his whole way of fight had completely changed in the brief time Kirito had know him.

Gone was his One Shot, One Kill motto was his attack style did not fall to just that. It seemed as though he knew his way around the spear as he was able to move it how he wanted to without much resistance. His fight style was a lot more fluid but also reserved. Kirito could still see hints of his past style but he utilised it a lot more effectively than he had done before.

Sasamaru was much more on the defense, using his spear to deflect and protect himself from incoming shots. To this extent he did it better than Kirito could as none of his movements were sharp, he mainly just flowed with the movement spear, adjusting slightly as needed. Unlike Kirito's defensive form where he tries to wear down the opponent, Sasamaru's is all about giving him more time to find an opening. Once he does he makes a short jab to surprise the mob then follows up with a rush of attacks to overwhelm the mob then eventually kill it.

But even though he had a completely new and improved way of fight he still had flaws in his way fighting. In fact Kirito knew he had flaws in his although his were a lot harder for an opponent to find out and exploit. Sasamaru's was simple, multiple enemies gave him troubles. Though Kirito did have to give Sasamaru credit as it took upwards of seven give him trouble. Once he had trouble it was hard to get out of it because he would begin to rush and thus he would create openings in his stance to be exploited.

That was why Kirito was with him, Kirito was to make sure he wasn't overwhelmed. The reason why he was with was that unlike the rest of the guild Kirito had a level headed mind throughout the fight. Kirito wasn't the fastest at dispatching enemies but surely but slowly he would get all of them out of the way. All Sasamaru needed was someone to keep him from having to many mobs on him and Kirito did that amazingly. Kirito had to give credit where credit was due. Keita knew what he was doing when he paired them up even though Kirito had no clue.

The others were doing perfectly fine. Ducker was using Sachi to find behind and like Kirito Keita was keeping mobs off of Tetsuo. Unlike Kirito, Keita was a lot more flexible as he knew how to keep up with Tetsuo when he was at his max speed while Kirito had trouble doing it without use of skills. Sasamaru was much more stationary than Tetsuo as he prefered to wait and let the mobs come him while Tetsuo hunted them down.

Kirito turned to look at Sachi just the moment where she was attacked. In her duo with Ducker she was the defensive and in Kirito's professional opinion she wasn't completely ready to assume that role. She was much better as a defensive support as she wasn't quite able to keep her composure in the face of mobs. Readying himself to run over to Sachi, Kirito was about to break out into an all out run.

That was before he saw Ducker and what he was doing. Ducker was the sole exception in the Moonlit Black Cats to what the guild usually suffered from. He knew how to handle multiple enemies and in fact he was able to pull off more complicated maneuvers with more enemies around. But Ducker was at his apex when he was in a tight position, he was virtually able to get out of any predicament. Kirito thought of Ducker as the strongest member of the guild even above himself when he was at his apex though he rarely was.

Ducker instantaneously became and more agile and started to practically fly towards Sachi. Before the mob could even attack again Ducker had already succeeded in landing two short but deep slashes at the wolf's neck. He spun around with his right arm outstretched, holding his knife in the ready position. His knife connected with a wolf behind him and broke through the wolf's jaw, killing it instantly.

Once he was completely turned around he kicked the wolf advancing on his left with his left foot and then did a downwards slash at the wolf on his right. Even though the wolf did begin to fade away he was caught by Ducker's knife right in between the eyes, instantly killing it. The wolf left jump at him but Ducker was already prepared. He charged up an unarmed skill and punch the wolf straight in this nose. This shoved the wolf's nose back into into it's head, killing it. Ducker had just reduced four wolf's before the red mark had faded away from Sachi's arm.

"Are you okay!" Ducker said, or rather yelled but he didn't mean to. Once he reached the end of his sentence he ran as fast as could to reach her. In any other scenario where he wasn't one of the two he would be laughing or criticising the position he was in but he was succinct and sincere. Even though he was usually serious during fights he was even more so than he was usually. Even the other guild members had looks of confusion at how serious Ducker was.

"Y-Yes." Sachi stuttered out silently. It was so silent that Kirito wasn't even sure that that was what she had said but he couldn't think of anything else she would say.

"Don't overextend yourself okay, don't worry I'll be fine."

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Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Thanks to all who have shown support to this fanfic, it truly means a lot!

Next chapters will be out in a week

Have a wonderful day!  
-Kirk


	112. Deliberate

June 1, 2023

-Kirito-

Kirito ran his hands across his forehead as if he was wiping sweat off of it. But the was one problem with that, you could not sweat in the game. This of course never stopped Kirito to attempt do that as he could still feel his body aching from the intense grinding session he had just had. Though the was no sweating it didn't mean that he didn't feel exhaustion set in as it usually did. Not wanting to take the long walk back, Kirito whipped out one of his teleportation crystals and immediately teleported to floor twenty three.

Upon arriving at the floor the guild was currently staying he had gotten a PM, or private message. Kirito didn't get these often now as the people who usually sent them were Asuna and Coper. Neither of them were friends with him any more so they couldn't message him. With that said, he still did get messages from Argo every once and awhile to check up on him tell him about her progress. But this time wasn't the case as the caller ID was from Keita.

Though they were in a guild together they really didn't message each all that often as Kirito was usually around to talk. However, it was currently a different time from usual as it was already dark out. Kirito would've expected the guild to be in bed by now but they weren't, apparently. To be frank he really didn't know because after the dungeon run he went off for some alone.

Kirito looked at the time of message and it was sent a couple of hours ago, probably when it was still daylight. This wouldn't stop Kirito, though as he still opened the message. It was voice recorded and it spoke to Kirito in the calm tone of Keita. One thing that Keita seemed to be able to but not Kirito was that no matter what scenario he was able to keep a straight face and tone. This didn't help Kirito now since it gave him no clues as to how dire the scenario was.

After listening to it once Kirito exited out of it and scratched his head. Keita stated that they hadn't been able to find Sachi after the dungeon run and had asked him if Sachi was with him. But she wasn't as not only did he usually do things alone he doubted that the guilds level of twenty nine would be able to compete on the floor that Kirito was just on.

Kirito walked off the teleportation hub and sat down on a bench and thought. Using the usually method of searching probably wouldn't be successfully as Kirito had the faith in Sachi that she could hide better than most. He would have to use a exclusive to Sword Art Online. Kirito delved into his menus and about ten menu's in he found the map of all of the guild members. The was one probably with this map however, you could not just skip to one person's location you would have to find it for yourself.

Sighing, Kirito started to search for Sachi by using the menu. He would the rest of the guild's members fairly easily. They were out in the floor searching for Sachi in teams of two. After ten minutes of searching it was obvious to Kirito that she wasn't on floor twenty three. Kirito searched floor after floor until almost an hour later he found Sachi on floor seventeen.

As soon as Kirito stood up a yawn escaped his mouth it was immediately followed by him stretching. Once he was done, Kirito walked to the teleportation pad and teleported down to floor seventeen. He remembered this floor vividly. Not only was this where he had an apartment it was also the floor where he had talked to Sinon.

Kirito took in the amazing scenery around as he walked of the pad. He knew that floor seventeen was near the top of the floors when it came to aesthetics. But as it was breathtaking in the night, it so much more at night. The water glisten as the lamp light shone on it. The result was like nothing Kirito had ever seen before, it was as though it was something out of a photo album. Kirito opened in his menu and quickly found Sachi's location, she was under on of the bridges.

With difficulty he maneuvered his way to where Sachi was. From far away Kirito could see Sachi curled up in a ball with her knees close to her chest with her arms crossed over them Her eyes were transfixed to the water in front of her, as if she was looking at her reflection. As Kirito walked towards he could tell that she hadn't moved in a while, it was as though she was a statue.

"Sachi!" Kirito called out as he approached her. This caused her to jumped a little but nowhere near her usual amount. She didn't reply but Kirito walked over and sat next to her with his eyes looking straight in front of him. "Everyone's worried." Kirito stated once his bottom was firmly and the ground. This caused her to shift her head back towards the water but this time she was looking down at her knees instead of her reflection.

"Hey, Kirito?" Sachi said which kind of surprised him. Kirito expected to be the one talking and all for her to say a few words. "Let's run away together." She stated with moving any part of her body other than the ones need to talk.

"From what?" Kirito asked as his head turned in Sachi's direction. He had an idea of what she had meant but he didn't want to give her idea's that she didn't have.

"From this town, the monsters, the black cats… and Sword Art Online." Sachi stated stolidly. She didn't move at all while telling Kirito this, as if she didn't want to persuade him or she didn't need to persuade him. This made a tiny gasp of air escape from Kirito, but he had suspected that that was what she had meant.

"Suicide?" Kirito asked, trying to appear surprised.

"That sounds good." Sachi said after a slight acknowledgement of what Kirito had said. This again caused Kirito to lose a bit of air, he would never suspect someone his age to be contemplating suicide. "No, I am sorry." Sachi said upon hearing his reaction. She moved one of her arms to wipe what Kirito thought to be tears of her face. In all the time they had spent together this was the first time Kirito had seen Sachi cry. "If I was prepared to die, I wouldn't be hiding in the safety on the town, now would I?" Sachi asked, but Kirito didn't think she wanted an answer.

Sachi's head rose had turned towards Kirito. "Why can't we leave?" Sachi asked, but before Kirito could respond she was already talking again. "What's the point, Why is our life at stake in this game?" Her head turned away from Kirito and was now looking at the wall across from her. Her arms lowered themselves so that Kirito could just barely see her knees.

"There probably is no reason to it, I think." Kirito stated as he too turned his head to face to wall across from him.

"I'm afraid of dying." Sachi stated in a rapid and emotional tone, as if she was one the verge of crying. Kirito didn't know what to say so he remain silent. "I'm so sacred, I can't sleep." Sachi stated as he face fell into her knees.

"I'm afraid of dying too, and you know I have trouble sleeping." Kirito stated as he turned his head to face Sachi once more. "But this is what makes me fight stronger because if I don't try to escape the game then the game has won." Kirito stated as he stood up and walked towards Sachi. "I promise you and the rest of the black cats that I won't let any of you die, you all will make it out." Kirito stated.

Once he was near Sachi he grabbed her hand and hoisted her up. "Come on now there's a bed with your name on it." Kirito said with large. Kirito saw a smile cross Sachi's face also and once she stood up she did something that Kirito didn't expected her to. She hugged, really hard as if to say thank you. Though Kirito was slightly gasping for air he didn't mind, he liked being hugged.

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Hope you all enjoyed this chapter!

If you have any concerns feel free to tell me

Next chapter will be up in a few

Have a great day

-Kirk


	113. Discuss

June 6, 2023

-Kirito, Sachi, Keita, Ducker, Tetsuo, Sasamaru-

"No no, you're going about this all wrong." Kirito stated as he stood up from the bed he was sitting on and into the middle of the conversation. "We already have good enough weapons we need a different objective." Kirito said he looked around at everyone in front of him. Before he had a chance to speak again he was cut off by someone behind him.  
"As much as I like you, you're making me feel smaller than I usual do and that's saying something." Ducker stated as he leaned of to the side and looked up at Kirito. Instead of protesting Kirito half sigh, half laughed and fell back down into his seat on Ducker's bed. "Good, now I instead feeling like a two year old I feel like a seven year old." Ducker stated sarcastically as he shoot a playful smirk Kirito's way.

As much as Kirito wanted to punch for his lack of mannerisms he didn't as he saw what Ducker meant. Kirito was among the same height of the rest of the male part of the Moonlit Black Cats. But with that said, he was still obviously shorter than Sachi. And Sachi was obviously shorter than the rest of them. Ducker used this to his advantage as being smaller meant he was more nimble. In fact, Kirito would say that his height was probably a contributing factor to why Ducker choose a thief class against the better judgement of his peers.

"I vote we get Tetsuo a better shield." Sasamaru declared as he slammed his hand down on to his knees with a loud thud. No one else was paying that much attention but he was pretty sure that a slight grimace of pain came off of his face once he had done it. This almost immediately went away as he refocused his attention to adding to the conversation. "We haven't done much with his shield since we got him a new one one floor fifteen." Sasamaru stated, more calmly this time.

"I can manage with what I have." Tetsuo said in a small and reserved voice. This was unlike anything he had ever heard Tetsuo say. In fact Kirito didn't have any recollection of any of the Moonlit Black Cats being timid. With the exception of Sachi of course. One of the things that he admired about the guild was the guild's ability to be upbeat almost all the time.

Just after joining the guild he realized that not all of the members were outgoing, he realized that Sachi was the exception. Preferring to stay in the background and observe it wasn't obvious to Kirito at first but once he started to notice it he noticed it. The conversations were mainly the other four talking while she watched. Kirito could sometimes see expresses on her face but most of the time she remained stolid.

This, of course had an expectation but it did take awhile to find out that it did. Over the last couple of weeks Sachi had been spending the night with him. The would talk until one of them fell to sleep, without her, Kirito doubted that he would get much sleep. Sachi would often tell him how she felt on certain subjects. Her words expressed her feelings a lot more frequently than anything else.

However, this didn't mean that Kirito didn't see tears of joy and cries of sadness. It took a lot to get them out of her buts once they were they came out like a waterfall. Kirito thought she was holding it in for some reason but he couldn't figure out what. As far as he knew the other boys were just as nice if not nicer and she had known them for more time. In a conversation he had had with Keita once he joined he had learnt that they all went to the same junior high school and senior high school.

"How about we get Sachi a better shield." Tetsuo stated looking over to Sachi. This made Kirito look up. He had turned them out of the last couple of minutes while he was engrossed with thoughts. It didn't take Kirito long to realize what they were talking about as they hadn't changed subjects yet. They were talking about what they were going to spend the copious amounts of money they had on.

Kirito truthfully believed that they didn't need to upgrade any weapons any further as if he had to be frank his was near the bottom of the pile. If anyone needed an near weapon it would be Keita but he would never voltaire himself as he was a little too selfless. Both Sachi and Tetsuo had gotten new weapons a couple of days ago and Sasamaru's weapons was from the field boss. Ducker has had his knife since before Kirito knew him. They were going over shields currently and Kirito didn't think it was a bad idea he just had a better one in mind.

"I'm fine." Sachi stated findling her figures in her lap.

"We can't keep Kirito as a forward forever, he'll be a lot better as a support." Sasamaru stated. Kirito couldn't object to this fact. Sasamaru had first hand experience to how great of a support he was. With him not taking on multiple enemies at a time he was a lot more powerfully and strategic.

During his time as a solo player Kirito would usually kite the mobs around until he had one facing him. Thanks to kendo he had a lot more experience in one versus one fighting. Though he hadn't done kendo in a while it didn't mean that he had forgotten everything, the basics were still there. In the beginning of his solo playing Kirito felt safer doing what he had some training in. Even with his level of skill there were somethings that just went straight over his head. To prevent this from being a pitfall from this he followed what he remembered of his grandfather's training.

"I'm fine with being a forward, I can do whatever you guys want me to do." Kirito stated as he bowed his head slightly. They all went back to their conversations but Kirito didn't. He had an idea that could put an end to the meeting. It wouldn't be a solution that they had thought of but Kirito thought that at least most of them would like it. Kirito coughed to bring attention to himself and he stood up.

"Um, I have a.. Uh, proposition." Kirito start extremely awkwardly. He had it all planned out in his head but once he stood up it was as if he was brainwashed. Without waiting for Keita or any of the others to tell him to go he start to speak, "We should buy a house, we aren't to far away from being able to afford one." Kirito stated. Once he finished he immediately sat back down on Ducker's bed. There was a couple seconds of awkward silence, and during this time Kirito doubted himself a little bit. But this was all soothed when another member started to speak.

"And with having a house we wouldn't have pay rent at this inn." Keita stated as he stood up and walked to the middle of the group. "All in favor of buying a house." Keita stated as his hand shot up into the air. Kirito was not far behind though it lack the enthusiasm that Keita's had. Sachi raised her hand timidly and both Sasamaru and Tetsuo raised their hands at the same time, as if it was rehearsed.

"Well it looks like I'm alone again." Ducker stated as his back fell into his bed, he was now looking at the ceiling.

"Your always alone." Tetsuo stated curtly. To this Kirito saw Ducker roll his eyes while he let out a slight smirk.

"Well it's decided then, we will buy a house!" Keita stated as he fist went into the air.

XXXX

I enjoyed this chapter, I hope you all did to!

Thank you for reading this collaboration of words, it truly means a lot.

Next chapters will be up in a week

Have a wonderful week!

-Kirk


	114. Departure

June 13, 2023

-Kirito, Sachi, Ducker, Tetsuo, Sasamaru-

Kirito sighed. This was a bad idea. No, it was a horrible idea. And he knew it. That fact was why he hated that they were in the dungeon, but he couldn't stop them them. At least without using his levels to persuade them. Kirito had tried to stop them and Sachi did help a bit to but Ducker was just really stubborn.

The guild, all expect for Keita was in the twenty seven dungeon. It was a labyrinth, which was Kirito's least favorite type of dungeons. They were usually dark and long, quite possible the hardest to map out in full and the easiest to get lost in. Nor did it help that Kirito had a pretty bad memory in one on lowers floors. But that wasn't reason why Kirito thought it was ill advised to go into the dungeon.

They had made it to floor twenty eight only yesterday and that was with Keita in their group. He was the one that always prepared for the worst, almost always had a backup plan. Kirito was basically nothing like him in this respect. He prefered to do things right the first time rather than wait for something to go awry. He couldn't do that now as it had already passed his thoughtful words without even an afterthought. Ducker had easily and stubbornly walked right in the dungeon.

Kirito couldn't blame Ducker as he didn't feel right doing that. He was courageous and hothead without having much intelligence or patience. Understandably, he thought of the now instead of the future, wanting to act before he thinks. This wasn't bad but in this particular scenario Kirito would be left to make sure Ducker didn't fall into a trap as he so often did. Looking ahead of him, Kirito saw Ducker in a heated conversation with Sasamaru and Tetsuo, he couldn't tell what it was about as they were talking over each other but he could tell that it was interesting.

Continuing talk walk a little ways behind the rest of the boys, Kirito glance to his side to see Sachi looking at him. She had a wide smile on her face and it did not fade when Kirito looked at her. Though Kirito thought he had seen a small blush on Sachi's face he disregarded it almost immediately as Sachi got ahead of him a bit and looked back towards him. "Come on let's catch up." Sachi stated as she held out her left hand for Kirito. Without even thinking Kirot took her hand and join the rest of the guild up in the front.

Looking behind him, Sasamaru finally saw Sachi and Kirito join the group. "See, it's a cakewalk." Sasamaru said lightheartedly towards Kirito as he stretched out both arms, as if to simulate tightrope walking. Tetsuo let out a halfhearted laugh while Ducker started to look over around.

Kirito did have to give credit to Ducker as he wasn't doing what he usually did. Instead of going off to find treasure, he was staying with the group. Kirito had advised him to do this of course but he didn't remain as stubborn as Kirito would've expected. Taking the place of Keita, he was navigating the passageways of the dungeon. Upon realising this, Kirito suspected that Ducker knew he made a mistake but was to stubborn to admit it.

This made Kirito sigh. Not a bad sigh like the ones he had been accustomed to, or the sleepy ones he let off all throughout the day. It was one of relief, at least he knew that he wasn't alone in his thoughts. Kirito watched the other members of the guild engage in another conversation, to the likes of which Kirito didn't have the indication to interfere in. A smile was brought his face after watching the camaraderie emanate off of the guild. It was something that he had never had, a friendship that was long lasting.

"Hey look." Tetsuo said as he pointed his hand towards what looked to be like a hidden door. It didn't register in his mind for a second that it was there and once it did Ducker was already opening it. There should be nothing behind the door as the front lines probably swiped this place clean of its hidden treasures. Though Kirito could see a guild such as the Army missing something as well hidden as this door.

The door swung open and inside was a treasure chest, directly in the middle. Instead of stopping Ducker from opening it he had walked in behind Tetsuo and Sachi and leaned his back up against the doorway. Though he wasn't claustrophobic, he still didn't want to stay long in the dimly lit blue room. It had the aura of impending doom, and that was something that didn't really please Kirito all that much. But as Ducker opened the chest, the aura went from impending doom to immediate death.

All around him the walls turned from crystal blue into a crimson red. Almost immediately Kirito's hand flew back and landed on the closed door with an audible thud. The door must of closed before Kirito could act. Brandishing his sword, Kirito looked around the small cramped room and found even more cramped than at had been before the walls changed colors. Instead of just the Moonlit Black Cats being in the room, they were accompanied by at least fifty mobs, if not more.

Kirito easily cleaved the heads off of the two closest mobs, a miner and a golem. Activating a vertical, Kirito's sword slammed straight a golem, bisecting it into two. He heard Ducker shoot out the closest town and teleport, which would in fact make him flee out of the trap. This was a smart idea, however it didn't work. Kirito had heard talks of anti crystal rooms but hadn't stumbled his way acrossed on yet. The rooms made it impossible to use any time of crystal, even a healing crystal.

Before he was able to join the others, he was bombarded by quite a few mobs which made him back his way into the doorway. Kirito watched Ducker jump up and get his leg impaled by one of the miner's axe. He instantly fell to the ground with a loud crash, there was no doubt in Kirito's mind that that didn't hurt. Once he was on the ground, Ducker used his knife to stab the miner in the foot. This did not kill it but it did stop it for the time being.

Then Kirito heard something get impaled, followed by a horrible scream. Kirito looked over to see Tetsuo for only a brief second before he crashed to the ground and died. He had be stab through the back and out the front by one of the golems arms. Behind him was a clear path that was left with miner's picks and pieces of rocks behind. He had clearly taken out a lot of the before he died. Kirito activated and linear straight into the golem in front of him, which killed it instantly.

Though his eyes should have been on the mobs in front of him they were not. Instead they were transfixed on the few members of the guild in front of him. Ducker was still on the ground but it did not look as though he been damaged further than what he had already sustained. Sachi was standing above him, attempting to keep mobs off of Ducker. She wasn't doing to well, Kirito knew that she would soon falter and die.

But his worries were instantly change as he looked over to Sasamaru. He had reverted to his old way of doing things, one shot, one kill. Kirito watched Sasamaru sink his spear in one of the golems but it didn't budge. Without even being able to look up, Sasamaru's head was penetrated by both of the golems arms, killing him without even him having a chance to scream. Sasamaru's spear hit the ground but Kirito didn't hear it. He was too distraught. In a matter of seconds, Kirito killed all of the mobs around him. His blade instead of being the peaceful white it was usually had gained a color dark the walls.

Kirito tried his hardest to make it over to the last two remaining members of the guild but couldn't do it in time. But he did get close, he had a clear line of sight to Sachi. This didn't sooth Kirito however, as he watched the girl he loved overwhelm. And the she was slashed across the back by a golem's arm. Kirito watched her fall to the ground and die. But not before he saw he say something that he couldn't hear. Kirito's hands tightened into fist and he ran towards the only other person in the room, Ducker.

Ducker was back on his feet, or foot because he was hopping around on one foot. That was until another miner took out his other foot. He crashed in the ground again but unlike last time Kirito couldn't hear the horrible noise. Kirito watched as the miner attempted to slam a pick down onto Ducker's head but he rolled out of the way. Grabbing the miner's pick, Ducker used it to kill the miner who had just attacked him. Then he threw it into another golem's head. This didn't kill the golem but it did take out a decent amount of HP.

Pushing of the ground once more, Ducker tried to stand up once more but this time proved fatal. While on both of his injured legs, Ducker was impaled by the very same golem he had just attacked. Kirito saw the pain and agony emanate off of Ducker's face but this wasn't long lasting. It didn't end when Ducker died, no Ducker ended it when he shooted to Kirito one word, Sorry. As the last syllable left his mouth, Ducker's face formed a forced smile. Not one second after Kirito saw the smile Ducker exploded into millions of blue shards, joining the rest of his friends.

Many tears would be shed from Kirito but this was not the time. Without even realizing it Kirito blade turned a dark shade of the red it had been. Kirito usual emotionless face was filled to the brim with sadness. He did not cry however, he used his anger and sadness to enhance skill. No longer the emotionless droid that he had learnt to be, Kirito kill each and every last mob in the cramped little room. As the room turn to it's original color so did his sword but Kirito didn't notice that either.

XXXX

What times is it, Time to get this uploaded!

I think that this is the latest I have ever uploaded something and well this probably two of my favorite chapters back to back, Shows how much I care I guess

Next Chapter will be upload almost simultaneously

Have a great week

-Kirk


	115. Duplicate

June 13, 2023

-Kirito, Keita-

Fuck you, you filthy beater rang in Kirito's head, ears and mind. This wasn't the first time Kirito heard this and it was sure to him that it wasn't anywhere near the last. Kirito had heard it in all varieties of forms, from Coper's joking speech all the way to what he had just heard. Being a swordsman, Kirito knew how much swords hurt but he would have never expected words to cut deeper.

Kirito was standing just a foot away from Keita on floor one. There were by a ledge that Kirito knew had a significant event take place there. Though Kirito had already left the Town of Beginnings before it had happened he had heard it from a number of sources. Most notably was Argo who had watched it from beginning to end. Coper had also told him about but Coper ran away right after it had started. They were standing where at least a thousand players killed themselves in hopes of escaping the game.

The thought of this made Kirito sick, more displeased than he had already been and after witnessing four of his closest friends die in front of him, he considered it a feat. Jealousy overwhelm Kirito as he thought about the situations he wouldn't have wound up in if he had died before he made it to the second town. But that wasn't him, he wasn't going to back down to a challenge, no matter how emotional dreadful it is. On the verge of crying, Kirito looked straight towards Keita his eyes not blinking nor wandering.

He swallowed the copious amounts of saliva that was in his mouth. Knowing that Keita would soon barrage him with more more hateful and virulent words, Kirito closed his hands to form a fist. These were fists to fight with however, as his thumb was in the inside of the fist. If he were to punch with a fist like this in the real world he would break his thumb before anything else. Swallowing more of the savila that seem to materialize out of nowhere he stared straight at Keita, his eyes unmoving.

Neither of the stirred nor moved. The area around them was suddenly cloak in a blanket of silence. This was not the usual awkward silence that the teenage Kirito had dealt with many times this was something different, something new. The silence had meaning, more than Kirito could express with words, it somehow was more complex than when Kirito and Coper made the nervegear.

Kirito continued to look at Keita. He could see Keita digesting everything that he had just heard. Moments before Keita had scream at Kirito, he had recounted the events that had happen without any emotion whatsoever. It took every fiber of being to not say he was sorry or convey emotion. Even now he felt his insides slipping away from his body. With every second that passed by Kirito came closer and closer to breaking but he knew if he did Keita would go off on him.

Fearing that they would hate him if he told that he was a beater, Kirito never told them, not even Sachi. And his fears were confirmed in this moment, he could see Keita's vehement face turn stolid in an instant. Knowing that the silence would soon be broken Kirito braced himself. He would take whatever Keita threw at him. It may not have been his fault but that didn't mean was going to let Keita Bottle his emotions. Kirito would rather him take them out on him now than take them out on someone who didn't deserve it.

"It's all your fault." Keita said in a calm and controlled voice. Or at least tried to be. Kirito could tell that he was conflicted between to choices. His voice had any unfathomable amount of strain to it like he was resisting the urge to shout and cry at the same time. Kirito sniffled and wiped the tears of his eyes in response to this. Almost immediately after he did this his eyes were once again covered in a layer of tears. He could feel the tears running down his cheeks, something he tried his hardest to prevent despite the, quite frankly inable ability to hold them in whilst inside SAO.

"You don't deserve to feel sad, you murderer." Keita spat at him. A look of absolute disgust washed over Keita's face and Kirito instantly felt horrible. This insult hurt more than the last one and the one before that combined. This wasn't the first time he had heard those words but it was the first time they had been directed at him. It was like he was reliving his worst nightmare, Kirito couldn't fathom how she dealt with it.

This made Kirito shift his eyes downwards, he couldn't stand Keita's eyes anymore, it felt as though they were burning a hole straight through his body and out the other side. But he glanced down for a mere moment then looked back up and saw something that he had thought he had missed. Keita was standing on the railing as if he was poised to jump.

Kirito immediately leapt into action. Without even thinking about it Kirito put all of his weight on to his to his left foot then push off with it. This made him jump after Keita but instead of going for height he went for distance. By the time he made it to the railing Keita had one foot off of it. He could have grabbed Keita right then and there if he had not hit the railing so hard.

He would have broken all of the bones in his chest if he was in the real world. Not to mention his toes that was slabbed into the ground and the knee that was smashed into the railing. All of these combined to Kirito's breath in an instant. No longer could he feel anything but his aching body parts but this didn't stop Kirito from grabbing Keita's leg as he descended.

Before he could even collect what was going on a sharp pain entered Kirito through his right shoulder. It was unlike nothing he had felt before, virtual or not. Before he realised it Kirito let out a loud scream of pain, enough to call attention from nearly everyone around. Through the intense pain that was telling him to release Keita and he preserved and his grip and Keita got even stronger than it had been.

Kirito was barely able to muster at words but he somehow made one sentence escape his mouth, "I may have watched everyone else die but I can't in good conscious watch you die too." These words fell out of Kirito's mouth between two gasps for air. His shoulder was now serious hurting, Kirito could tell that if they were not in the game he would have dislocated it at bare minimum. That was not a calming thought for Kirito.

"Let me go!" Keita yelled as he squirmed and yanked his body around. This absolutely devastated Kirito's pain tolerance. Kirito closed his eyes tightly as if they would help him forget about the pain. But it didn't, in fact he felt now more than ever. He felt the pain of watching Coper die and the pain of watching Tetsuo, Sasamaru, Sachi and Ducker die before his eyes. They were all to much to bare.

"You're right." Kirito stated exhaustively. This gain a confused looked a Keita face but it was quite heavily mask by the anger and distraught he felt against Kirito. "I am a filthy beater, in fact I am the original beater but that doesn't mean I am a murderer, it just means that I am selfish." Kirito stated as color started to drain from his face.

"Maybe it's because I am selfish that I want you alive. But you should want to stay alive too. If not for the sheer fact of not dieing then to tell the people of aincrad what I did and what happen to your guild." Kirito spat with obvious displeasure in his voice. "You can't expect me to tell the truth about what happen, after all I am just a filthy beater, I don't think of anybody but myself." Kirito said solemnly. It felt as though he was slapping himself in the face and it actually felt kind of good.

"You won't die here Keita, I see through to that." Kirito said after an audible gulp. Kirito's voice was more calm and not as rushed. Though the pain definitely hadn't subsided he was more used to it by now. "You have a job to do, to tell people the stories of you and your guild." Kirito stated clearly. "That is something you and only you can do." Kirito said he nearly closed his eyes. "I may have lost your trust but you haven't lost mine yet." Kirito said as he gathered what remained of his strength and lifted Keita over the railing and back onto solid ground.

Keita looked at Kirito for a few long seconds before turning away from him and walking away without another word. He would likely never talk to Kirito ever again but he would be forever grateful to him. Kirito wouldn't use this to his advantage but it was his feeble way of saying sorry. In his heart Kirito knew that Keita would never accept his apology and Kirito wouldn't been fine with it but he could live with it.

With these thoughts in his head, Kirito look down to his hands. His hands were shaking like no other, nothing Kirito could do to stop it. The pain that Kirito still felt throughout his body took the backseat in Kirito's mind. The physical pain would subside over time but the emotional pain that he felt now would last for an infinite amount of time.

XXXX

Kirito may not have been strong enough to save the rest but he was able to save Keita and that is what I have been leading up to for the longest time. The fact that he had witnessed death before and been where Keita was at, made him save Keita.

If you have any questions or concerns please tell them to me, I'd be more than happy to hear them

Next chapters will be up in a week

Have a wonderful day!

-Kirk


	116. Down

June 14, 2023

-Kirito and Argo-

"Do you have it?" Kirito asked stolidly to Argo. She wouldn't need any explanation as she should know what he was talking about. In fact, she had been pestering him for a while to pay it off but Kirito had guild things to spend col on. But now since he wasn't in a guild he had all the money he could need, at least for the moment.

Though it wasn't true that he was kicked out of the guild, he was still currently in it. One simple fact made it so it wasn't a guild anymore, he was the only one left. Shortly after his last and presumably finale talk to Keita, he had left the guild. Kirito had concluded that Keita wanted to forget what had just happened or at least not have it be reminded to him every time he looked up at his name tag.

This made sense to Kirito as he had done something similar. Almost directly after Coper died he cut all ties to the front lines, or at least all ties that would follow him. It hurt him to do that and doubted Coper would have wanted him to do it but he did it nonetheless. Even after all this time he had no inclination to go back and join the front lines, not after what he had done. Asuna would most likely kill him if he returned and after watching several people die Kirito realized one thing; No matter how reckless he may be, he values his life over almost everything else.

"Which the item or the information." Argo looked at him with a look that spewed out sarcasm. Her face was telling him that she knew what he meant but wanted to joke around with him a bit. This did not go over well with Kirito. Maybe at another time, Argo's annoying playful manner wouldn't get on his nerves but this time it just did click right. Kirito responded with a look of dread and pure annoyance, a look that he was almost sure would get the job done.

Kirito saw her mutter something small under her breath then open her menu. After scrolling through it for quite a long time she finale materialized a piece of paper. Argo opened it up and looked at it for a few seconds before giving it to him. "Here's the first piece, don't try storming their headquarters though, they have way to many players, even for you." Argo stated.

Unscrolling the paper he looked at for a few seconds. It was just what he had needed, well at least twenty floors ago. Kirito understood why it had taken Argo so long to find all the information she had gathered here. Not only was it dangerous info that had grabbed but it surprising likely specific. But it wouldn't help him now, nor in the near future. She was right, they most likely had way to many players for Kirito to effectively handle.

"The other one." Kirito stated. He had asked her for two pieces of information, both extremely hard but for different reasons. The first one was dealing with finding the whereabouts of the red guild, Laughing Coffin. If they knew what she was doing they wouldn't hesitate to kill her. Knowing this Kirito gave her all the time she had need to and only today did she finale finish it. He was grateful to her, she may resent him now, but she had proved herself time and time again that she was a helpful ally.

The second one, Kirito would have to say was a lot harder than the first. At least with the first Kirito had given her some names to start off with but with the second piece he had given her almost nothing. Just the vague description of someone who was dead. Argo probably went through day after day without finding anything. It was this information that had taken her the longest. Kirito knew that she had been done with the Laughing Coffin info for a while now but he want both pieces of info at the same time.

"Are you sure want the piece of info?" Argo asked. This wasn't her usual playful talk that she usually consisted of but she looked as though she was genuinely asking. Unlike last time this didn't annoy Kirito, it actually kind of shocked him. She had went through all the hard times to get this small piece of information and yet she was willing not give it to him so it wouldn't hurt him. Argo had just shown Kirito another side of herself, one that had no correlation with her info broker statis. Kirito nodded , and Argo to in a large breath

"She had no friends in the game that I am aware of, in fact her friends list had been completely empty for the entire game." Argo stated. Kirito looked up with a look of confusion, there was no way she been able extract that information from anyone other than the girl herself, and she was dead. "I used a computer that Tito had told me about." Argo answered, almost as if she had been reading his mind.

"There's a computer?" Kirito stated astoundedly. He didn't know that they was a computer inside the game. That last time he had heard of anything like that was in the beta. There was rumors around that there was a computer at the end of a extremely hard maze. Kirito tried to look for it but he didn't find, even after completing all the dungeons twice. But what surprised him more that it was in the finished result of the game. "Where is it?" Kirito asked.

"That will cost you quite a lot of col, you know that." Argo stated without any hesitation. Kirito knew that his last question would lead to nothing but, it didn't help to try. "You are the only person that has even talked to her." Argo stated as she looked down to her feet. "Her name is Rose, and I bet if you wanted to you could figure out her real name once you are back in the real world." Argo said without taking another breath.

Kirito had just gotten a glimpse into the life of a girl that saved his life without hesitation. She was a solo player but not because she wanted to but because no one would talk to her. Without anybody to talk to she must have been going insane, Kirito knew he would. Kirito bit his lip before he open his mouth to speak, "Thank you."

"What do you want to do about the crystal?" Argo asked as she materialized it out of her inventory. Kirito had used it as a down payment for the Laughing Coffin task. It seemed as though she had not used as Kirito would have expected her to. But now after over twenty floors it was finale his at last but he didn't want it. Kirito each out his hand and grasp the crystal with his right hand.

It felt cold, as if it knew how many people had died since he didn't have the stupid crystal. Kirito felt like throwing it onto the ground and smashing but that would be a waste of this one of kind artifact. He had no idea how much it costed and Kirito didn't care. There was no reason for him to have it, he had nobody to use it with. Feeling it with his hands one last time, Kirito gave the crystal back to Argo.

"Are you giving it to me?" Argo asked as she looked at the crystal.

"No, You are going to give it to some who will actually use it." Kirito said as he materialized some col. "Here's your payment, no go and find and player named Keita and give it to him." Kirito stated without a single bit of hesitation in his voice.

"Should I tell him who it is from?" Argo asked a she put the crystal back into her inventory.

"No."

XXXX

Wow it has been a long time since I talked about that

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter!

Next chapter will be up in a few

Have a wonderful day

-Kirk


	117. Disdain

June 20, 2023

-Johnny Black-

"Target acquired." He thought to himself as his eyes were trained on the target. Johnny was just mere meters away from the player and yet he was completely invisible to him. Cloaked over the seal of darkness that the night provided, he tracked the targets movements. But he wouldn't be killing the target; no, he would be insuring that Zaza would have an easy time with his target.

Over the last couple of months with Laughing Coffin, the unofficial guild name that they had taken on, he had still not attack player yet. Not only that he still was a player without an offenses to his name, he had never turned yellow. But he had killed before, twice in fact. One of his roles in the guild was a thief and in doing this he a subjected himself to a dangerous task. This combined with the fact that he was a scout and the information gatherer made for him to be extra careful when stealing from players.

His roles mainly had himself seem harmless and this was a much easier to obtain when he didn't have a yellow crystal thing floating above his head. Though it wasn't permanent until his fifth offense, Johnny didn't want to chance it. No doubt that once he was a yellow player he would immediately be converted into a 'red player' as they called it. He was afraid of this.

It wasn't that he didn't think he had the skills to or he would die on the job, no it was a lot more emotional to him. The deaths of players haunted his dreams, and yet the players that haunted them weren't the ones he had killed. With the players Johnny had killed there was one major difference which made them stand out. They had attacked him first and their death was mainly a result of Johnny's self defense.

Over the last couple of months Johnny witnessed more deaths than he could count, more than he could remember. They were gruesome, Johnny doubted that there wasn't a way that a player could that he hadn't seen. Everything from decapitation to using the handle of a sword to break a skull, Johnny had witnessed it all. He couldn't even begin to imagine the nightmares he would have if he was the one to kill them.

Silently hopping from tree to tree, Johnny kept track the player until he finale saw Zaza on the other side. This was his job to corner the player while Zaza completed the job. Taking out one of his stolen knives from his inventory, Johnny silently fell to the forest floor of floor twenty five. Not daring to move closer to the target, Johnny raised both of his arms to the point were that if the player looked, he would only see his hazel eyes.

Using his hazel eyes, Johnny quickly found the red eyes of Zaza. They were trained on the enemy, slowly moving as the player navigated the dark forest alone. Gripping his dagger even harder, Johnny slow began to crouch lower and lower until just not touching the ground with his butt. He poised and ready to strike though eh knew he wasn't supposed to.

Within their so called guild, Johnny had learnt that his superiors had no tolerance of insubordination and this made Johnny really uncomfortable. He had heard from the others that Zaza had killed for a player that had hesitated. Johnny doubt that if he did the same the results would be the same, death. Even if he was one of the most senior members, it didn't matter, as Johnny knew that they were relentless.

Johnny revert his eyes away from the piercing eyes of Zaza back to the player. He had still not noticed, which meant he at least had some time until he died. Over all of his missions with Zaza he had learned that he liked to toy with his victims, even more than PoH did. Zaza would wait until the player say him to strike, the look of fear on the player's face was unparalleled for Zaza, as it was what gave him the most joy.

Closing his eyes, Johnny said a little prayer to the soon to be dead player then opened them. His movements were last wandering and had more direction. Even the slightest change of movements Johnny noticed but Zaza didn't. With his lust for torture, Zaza overlooked the smallest of things. This was why Johnny was with him, to make sure he didn't fall into a trap. Johnny raised his knife so that it would reflect light off of the full moon from above. This was the sign for Zaza to attack, and he didn't take a single second to pounce out of the darkness.

Using his estoc, Zaza ran at the player with amazing speed. Knowing that he was there, the player whipped out his sword a swung it in a large horizontal to make Zaza go off course. This just made Zaza duck but he was successful at making Zaza stop for a second. Holding his broadsword with both hands, the player stuck his sword down and into Zaza's foot with great force. Though Johnny heard no sign of distress from Zaza, he knew that it hurt.

Readying his stolen dagger, Johnny waited for the player to attack Zaza again but instead he ran. But he had made one fatal error, he was running at Johnny. The player seemed to realized this only after he was committed to it. This only made him run fast at Johnny and no his face was facing the ground, as if he was going to ram into Johnny with his head.

His instincts told him to dodge and run out of the way but his brain told him that doing that was ten times more dangerous than the alternatives. But Johnny wasn't about to let himself get pummeled by the player. He fabricated a plan in mere seconds and then executed at the perfect time. Once the player was near him, Johnny dropped to the ground and kicked hard on the player's left leg. This made the player face plant on to the ground where Johnny had fallen onto the ground at. Johnny knew that he would land on him so he rolled out of the way.

Springing to his feet, Johnny immediately attacked the player with his left hand. Without using any unarmed skills, though he had some, Johnny's left palm struck the players eyes causing him to fall back to the ground. Jumping backwards, Johnny saw the player swing his sword around him the also get to his feet. He looked at Johnny and readied his blade. In response this Johnny readied himself to.

The player was aggressive, he attack with all his might and power, not holding a single ounce of power left. It was obvious to Johnny, he was fighting for his life. Johnny was having a hard time dodging every attack and he often was left to blocking them with his dagger, which was not a good idea. But Johnny persevered at weaved his way in and out of the players broadsword. Johnny was waiting for the player to make one move that he had done before, his horizontal.

Johnny was the player get ready for it and unleash it. Acting like Zaza had, Johnny ducked underneath it and used his legs to sweep him out from under his feet. Once the player had fallen to the ground Johnny jumped back. Out of his peripherals he had seen Zaza run over to them. Once he was within striking distance he disarmed the player and then stabbed him in the right hand.

"Give us everything in your inventory or we'll kill you." Zaza snarled at the player as he twist his estoc around in the player's had. This made the player scream out in horror. Unable to look at what was going on Johnny walked over to the broadsword and picked it up. It was of good value, he put it into his inventory and looked back at the two players.

There were new marks on the player's face and arms but it seemed as though the player had given up and was giving everything he had to Zaza. After a couple of minutes and much persuasion on Zaza's part, the player was stripped of all of his col and items. That included his clothes. Zaza stood up and Johnny got a clear look at the player.

He had wounds all around his body. In everyplace that was imaginable he had a cut or bruise. It seemed as though Zaza had taken to punching the man with skills. The player stood up very slowly. It most likely wasn't because he had just been robbed, it was probably because he had just tortured and his whole entire body ached. The one saving grace that Johnny had in his mind for the player was that he would die soon.

"Thank you for your mercy." The player said as he bowed towards Zaza. He stood back up and he saw Zaza's blade at the ready, about to strike him. "Please don't." He begged but he wasn't able to beg again.

"There is no mercy in Laughing Coffin." Zaza stated with a wicked grin as he stabbed the player straight through his stomach. He let out of scream of pain before he bust in blue shards. Johnny knew one thing that would be a result of this. He wasn't going to get any sleep, this event would perpetuate itself into his mind.

XXXX

How long has it been since we seen them! They will mainly pop in when they have a job to do, until later on when they actually have an arc

If you have any questions or concerns feel free to ask!

Have a wonderful week

Next chapters will be up in a week

-Kirk


	118. Digress

June 24, 2023

-Johnny Black-

"You ready?" Johnny asked as he pointed his dagger towards another player. Without even a second of hesitation the player ran at him. Bringing back his out stretched hand back to his chest. Grasping his right hand with left, Johnny waited for the incoming player's strike. Both of his hands were barely in front of his mouth, just enough space that he could breath but not enough that his hands were void of his breath.

His eyes were tracking every movement of his opponent. Once Johnny was within range his opponent used his two handed spear to produce a wide horizontal. Jumping back, Johnny barely dodged the spear. If they were in a duel of any other type Johnny would have been a lot more careful but he couldn't die from this duel.

"Come on, you can do better than that." Johnny said with a smirk spreading across his face. Reacting faster than Johnny could even comprehend, the player swung his spear with one hand at Johnny. If his knife had not been in the swords path then he would have lost a ton of health but, alas he was saved. Though he couldn't die from this duel, Johnny would become much more careful. If he died, then his credibility would definitely lower.

"Haha, guess I got you second guessing now, eh?" The player taunted. Johnny remained unphased, he was used to it. Not only did Johnny use these tactics when he did duels like these, but Zaza had made it a huge habit to play with his targets. Over time Johnny had became immune to hurtful words, or at least hurtful words of this caliber. Though some words would be able to hurt him, a total stranger could not bring out these feelings.

"You wish, I just underestimated you, that will not happen again." Johnny stated curtly as he brought his hands up and in front of his face. Instead of connecting them however, his left hand formed a fist while his right clutched his dagger. The player in front of him also fell back into his stance. Unlike Johnny's stance, it was full of openings.

To be fair Johnny didn't know how take advantage of this but he knew that his opponents stance was flawed. The first step was knowing, now all he had to down was act on it. Without even allowing himself to conjure up a plan, Johnny leaped of the ground at the player. He swung his knife at the player which was easily blocked by the player's spear. Almost immediately after his dagger made an audible thud against his opponent's spear, Johnny was knocked off to the side.

Immediately rolling off to the side, Johnny narrowly dodged a life threatening strike. As soon as he possibly could, Johnny propelled himself back onto his feet just in time to see that a vertical was heading his way. It looked as though his opponent put everything they had into the strike; there was no way he could possibly block it and prevail. So Johnny did what he knew best, he dodged the incoming strike.

To completely his job of being a thief, Johnny taught himself a very specific way of fighting. Without any great strengths, Johnny had to train himself hard to make it to where he was. And Johnny was damn proud of it though he did have to be honest to himself in one respect. His offensive capability was next to nothing, scratch that it was nothing. He could not attack anything if his life depended on it. It was this weakness that frustrated him to the point of breaking when out on his own.

But to make up for this he had a near impregnable defense. And that was saying thing since his weapon was a dagger, possible one of the worst weapons to defend with. In fact, with that said he had never went into the yellow. Though he had done anything stupid that would warrant it. That last fact would be tested by his opponent as he was stronger than any other he had faced.

"Come." Johnny said as he waved his hand towards his face ushering for the player to attack. Not even thinking for a second, the player rushed at him and jumped at him. His landing produce a ground shaking vertical, that Johnny would have been killed from if he had not dodged it. Unfortunately for his opponent, his attack was sloppy and easily predictable. If Johnny had a weapon that could have produced a counter strike he would; but, alas he did not.

This did not stop Johnny from taking this moment and striking his opponent. Johnny sidestepped the attack then buried his dagger deep into the player's hands. This earn Johnny a frustrated scream from the player but also something else. Almost immediately after the player swung his spear up and the spear's head slash across Johnny's face, going directly in between his eyes.

Johnny immediately jumped back in an attempt to get away but he wasn't lucky at all as the player seemed enraged. As soon as he was back on his feet, Johnny was meet with a barrage of attacks. None of them got through his defense but the player didn't let up one bit. He was swinging his spear with fluidity that Johnny had never seen before and was astonished. WIth the skills that he was portraying Johnny would have expected him to be a front liner, not just anything player in the middle levels.

Continuing to fade away, Johnny still could not get his opponent off of him. At the beginning the player wasn't using all of his skills but now he most certainly was. Almost nothing Johnny could manage to pull of seemed to create some distance. Johnny could only defend himself until either the player stopped his assault or tried himself out. The latter didn't seem to be happening, his face did show tiredness, in fact it showed nothing. But then out of seemingly nowhere he stopped attacking.

Johnny slowly back away until he had a safe distance away from the player, if the player intend to attack him again, then he would have some time to respond. Johnny then position both of his arms near his head. His left arm was covering his mouth as if he were coughing while his right hugged the outside of his left. Johnny looked at his opponent's face again to see that it was sporting a different look than it had been. If Johnny had to describe it, he would say it was the face of a cat getting ready to pounce, but then it did.

Though he had been ready, nothing could prepare him for what came next. Gripping his dagger as tightly as he could he braced himself for the incoming strikes. He dodged the first couple but fell back into blocking the rest. His opponent was overwhelm him but yet Johnny still needed to combat his opponent. He would have to attempt to use his brain more than he ever done before.

Johnny started to take note each and every strike even with how fast they were now going. Barely able to deflect most of them, Johnny realised something. The attacks had no correlation with each other, it was as if his opponent didn't plan anything he was just going with the flow. But as the confrontation progressed the attacks got faster and faster, it was giving Johnny more and more trouble.

Before he knew it, the dagger Johnny had been hanging on to dear life for, knocked out of his hand and into the air. Johnny reached his hand up to grab it but his forearm was hit by the blunt end of his opponent's spear. This result in pain traveling throughout Johnny's body, but he wasn't going to die, at least not yet. Johnny jumped back and in doing soo he probably gave away the duel.

The next attacks were so fast that Johnny wasn't even able to comprehend them. Raising his now red arm, Johnny attempted to block as many of the incoming strikes as he could. But this would be in vain as the first strike neglected Johnny's arm completely. The player's spear went straight through the injured forearm and into Johnny's chest before he pulled it out. If he had continued to attack Johnny would've been dead, but alas he was saved.

"You'd make one fine player to have in our arsenal, what do you say?" Johnny said as he raised a clear hurt arm. The timer above their heads went off to announce Keita as the victor in their duel right as Johnny finished.

"Save it, I have no interest in joining your little beater hating group, I just want to test my abilities." He said with a tone that obviously said he was done talking to Johnny.

"You'd make beaters all over the game fear you." Johnny stated.

"Let's just hope that your little group doesn't fear me too."

XXXX

And this is the end of part two, I hoped you all liked it!

If you have any concerns or questions feel free to ask

Next chapter will appear momentarily

Have a great day

-Kirk


	119. Descant

June 28, 2023

-Sinon-

Sinon stood up and stretched. It was early in the morning and if she could have helped it she would have slept it but alas this would not be the case. Bringing her hands back down to stabilizes herself, Sinon squinted her eyes as if on instinct. She quickly realized that this wasn't doing anything and immediately stopped doing so. Running her hands through the short about of blue hair on top of her head, Sinon opened up her menu and changed into her usual entire.

Right after she put on her new coat, she looked in the mirror. In the real world Shino was never worried about how she looked often not even tidying up her hair before leaving her house. She was a lot more engrossed in her studies than all of the others students and it showed more than anything else. After a couple of years of pushing herself she had made it so she was a year ahead of everyone else her age. All to just throw her hard work away for a stupid game.

Closing her eyes tightly, Sinon immediately turn her head away from the mirror in disgust. What was done was done, there was no one to blame other Kayaba. Sinon opened her eyes once more and sneak the smallest of looks at her mirror. In her first longer look she had been looking at her face almost exclusively but now she looked at the attire that she had outfitted herself into. Surprisingly, Sinon found herself to be stunning and like her outfit at the same time. It barely showed any excess skin and wasn't extremely tight, at least in most places. If anything it was a lot like the cloths she used to wear in the real world.

On her torso was just a simple plain blue shirt that was close fitting but not exactly tight. It let in just enough air to make her feel comfortable and was wearing her usually black short shorts though she did appreciate the fact that these ones were slightly longer. Over top of all of this, she had on a black trench coat. It barely reached past her shorts and she was surprised at how much she liked it. Fact be told, it was Silica how had gotten her this outfit and Silica had excellent taste. There was not a single part of it that she disliked, in fact she liked it more than the outfits she usually wore.

Closing her door behind her, Sinon walked to Saffi's office. This was something she did quiet frequently but never this early in the morning. She really didn't have that much problem with it as she was signed up for it but she would've rather been told about it yesterday. Her hand reached for the door handle of Saffi's office then hesitated just for a second. Retracting her hand from the handle she knocked a couple of times on the door. With a loud beckon to come, Sinon opened the door and walked in.

"I've told you a million times before, you don't have to knock just come right in." Saffi stated with faked annoyance once her eyes found Sinon. Sinon opened her mouth to respond but wasn't instantly cut off. "You will knock the next you come okay, that's an order from your superior." Saffi stated with a slight smirk as she tossed the ball in her hand up into the air. As soon as it hit her hand she threw it as hard as she could at Sinon. With barely enough time to react, Sinon left hand went up and caught it out of the air. The ball in question was barely bigger than her hand.

Sinon would have to guess that the ball in her hand was a tennis ball. In addition to all the sheer randomness in Saffi's 'office' was now what Sinon would have to guess to be a tennis court. In the middle of it was a net and in Saffi's hand was two rackets. As soon as she came to this conclusion Saffi started to speak, "You want to play a match?" Instead of saying yes she walked over to Saffi and gave the ball in trade for one the rackets. "Where did you get the net?" Sinon asked as she journeyed to her side.

"It's a fishing net from floor twenty two, I doubt any has actually used it though." Saffi stated as she readied herself. Gripping the tennis ball, Saffi threw up into the air a couple times, until she had done this five times till at last on the sixth time she hit the ball towards Sinon. Without much effort or movement Sinon hit back towards Saffi. This continued for a couple of silent minutes until Saffi started to speak and explain why she asked Sinon to come to her office so early in the morning.

"I won't be at the next boss raid, you'll lead our squads." Saffi curtly stated out of the blue. "And No, I have already made up my mind, you cannot persuade me otherwise." Saffi stated to clear up any questions on the subject. Saffi knew that Sinon would now accept it without questions and further pushing. But she didn't know about the other requests she was going to make. "I have some business to attend, I hope you understand." Saffi said as she bowed her towards her subordinate.

"I understand and I accept." Sinon said, also with her body bowed. Raising her head up to meet with Saffi's, her mind had already fabricated another question. "Can I pick out the players to bring with me?" Sinon asked humbly. She knew that she could choose her closest friend in the guild, however, she had people she had liked more than others. Though most importantly she knew the strengths and weaknesses of most of their players.

"I will have that sent out by the end of the day." Saffi said, acknowledging and shooting down Sinon's question with ease. She readied her right arm and easily hit the tennis ball back at Sinon with a little more force than she had been doing. "There's a strategy meeting later today, will you go to it?" Saffi asked.

"Yes, and if I may, I would like to choose the people I bring to the raid." Sinon said after gulping. Though Saffi was incredibly laid back to her and the rest of her guildmates she didn't change her plans rarely at all. Saffi was infinitely stubborn and unwavering, but this didn't mean she didn't take other people's input into account. However, this time she did not care about Sinon's input as she had already decide what to do without her.

"You may not." Saffi said as if it was rehearsed, "Though I don't have any problem with the people that you choose I intend to make this a test of your leadership and intelligence." Saffi stated, not stopping or wavering one bit. "Prove to me that you deserve your position, and then and only then I will allow you to pick who to bring." Saffi demanded.

These words were unlike anything she had heard Saffi say to anyone. Compared to other guilds, Storm of Centuries was definitely the most laid back out of all of the front lines and this was due to Saffi. She didn't enforce any rules of any kind. There wasn't even a level quota. To quote Saffi, "You will not be kicked out for having a low level, simply you participate in the raids." The guild rarely did anything together, however this didn't stop the guild from getting to know each other. Often random members of the guild would go off on dungeon runs and others would join them.

Saffi left her guild to largely be self maintaining, she was only the leader in name. Almost all of the things she was responsible for were boss raids. And even then she let players say no to going to the boss raids. This made what Saffi had just said all the more strange to Sinon as she had never heard a demand come out of her mouth. With hesitation she said okay and hit the tennis ball back to Saffi with a little more fervour. However, what she didn't expect was for Saffi to hit make at her with unrivalled speed and accuracy. Without even having time to react the tennis ball shot straight at Sinon and bounce off her breastplate.

"What was that for!" Sinon exclaimed as her eyes followed the ball on to the ground.

"Your supposed to hit it with racket, and don't even act like it hurt, you're wearing your breastplate." Saffi smirk.

"Shut up." Sinon said exasperated and with that she left Saffi's office.

XXXX

Man has it been a long time since we've seen them

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapters be out in a week

Have a great day

-Kirk


	120. Exchange

June 20, 2023

-Sinon, Asuna, Diavel, Klein, Lynd, Heathcliff, Ran, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Godfree-

Even though she was currently present next to Diavel, Sinon couldn't hear anything. This wasn't really a huge problem as she was she was facing but something else worried. Her heart was beating faster and faster, as if it knew something the Sinon did not. It was as if it was trying to communicate through a series of beeps but Sinon wasn't responding. Even if she wanted to respond she couldn't as, it wasn't like she could talk to her heart.

Sinon covered her face and wiped what would be sweat in the real world off her face. The was one simple way to put it, she was nervous. Not like taking a test that she didn't study for in school or speaking in front of the class. No, this was different, she felt as though her life hung on her success, and in some ways it did. This was going to be different, never before had she commanded fellow players, it felt foreign to her.

The boss room door started to creak open. Diavel must of stopped talking as besides the muffled footsteps, the door was the only thing making sounds. Watching the crowd of front line players in front of her, Sinon held up a hand gesture to tell her squads to hang back. This was more procedure than anything as the support was always last to go in the boss room. Sinon held her breath and closed her eyes for the slightest second. Never in a million years would she be ready for what was going to happen in the boss room, but she was as close as she could get.

Gluping, SInon looked side to side. The Knights of the Blood Oath were passing her currently. They were always first to go into the boss room as they were the largest of the front lines guilds and possibly the strongest. That however could not be measure as though they were incredible with tanks and DPS they had no support. The Knights of the Blood Oath may be the largest Guild but without Storm of centuries they would find the boss battle to be nearly impossible.

At the front of the guild was Asuna, better know as Lightning Flash Asuna. Though Heathcliff and Diavel were both superior to her there was no else that could do what she did. She was the offensive commander, while both Heathcliff and Diavel the defensive ones. Almost all of the offensive maneuvers that were executed by the front lines were chosen by her. Most players knew her as the fastest player in the game the front lines knew that wasn't her strongest ability.

Her decision making skills were faster than anyone else's. While Tsubaki and Ran were the ones who formulated the overall plan Asuna was the to preform a the little intricacies. She was more brash and upfront they anyone else. The mistakes that she made wouldn't slow her down, it would only and to the fire that she is. Asuna was the offensive commander and Sinon couldn't think of anyone else who could do it as well she did.

"Two pronged attack both sides, make sure you are spread out, Squad G delay attack the front, be reserved, once the supports come in unleash your full power." Asuna shouted over all of the other players. One good thing about her being the commander was that she was a girl, or rather her voice was different from the vast majority of players. This made it so her commands were easy to hear.

Lowering her hand, SInon ushered for her subordinates to follow her into the boss room. But once she was inside Sinon's footsteps slowly became further apart. Though she had imagined what the boss would look like in her head it was nothing near what she saw in front of her. At the boss raid meeting they had told her that they would be facing a huge demon and they weren't wrong but they neglected to give her what the demon had looked like apart from its physical capabilities.

It's looked like it was once a wolves but had lost all of it's skin and fur to be replaced by huge gaping burn marks. Each mark was blacker than black and looked as though it had harden against the demon's skin. On it's neck it had a necklace of skulls each one had lost it's lower jaw. From it's back stretched two bat like wings with tears in them. Sinon doubted that the demon could fly with wings like those. Huge red bruning gashes were on it's torso, as it they had just been applied. It's body was lather with scales while it's hands were covered with claws of all shapes and sizes. SInon couldn't tell if they were the demons or not. All in all the demon was a sight to be seen as Sinon doubt that she would ever see anything like it again, even it she did survive this boss raid.

After mustering up the strength to bring her back into the present Sinon began to speak. "Support the two prongs, if you see any opening go for it." SInon told her squads. There was no need to shout as the furthest player from her was only a couple of meters away. Without any resistance or hesitation her subordinates obliqued and start to help the other players. Once Sinon made sure all of her players were doing fine, she took an arrow from her back and sheathed it onto her quiver. Pulling it back to where the string almost bypassed her face her quiver started to glow purple. Once Sinon saw an opening she let the arrow lose but doubt it would hit it's intended mark.

The arrow soared towards the boss but got cut out of the air by the bosses wings. It seems as though the wings do have a use. Quickly readied another arrow, SInon looked around at her fellow guild members. Apart from the one member who was getting knives out of his inventory, they were doing exactly what Sinon asked them to. Sinon refocused her attention to the boss as her quiver glowed white.

Sinon heard another barrage of commands come out of Asuna's mouth but didn't catch what she had said. This of course didn't bother her as she didn't take arounds from Asuna, she wouldn't need to her what to do, she would only need to see what they are doing. Sinon quickly observed the space around Asuna, thankfully due to the silver chestplate Asuna had on she was even easier to find the usual.

All of the players around the demon were now circling it, trying to get in any chip damage that they could. Sinon's eyes flickered up to see that the boss was nearly halfway dead. In the heat of battle, it seems a lot faster than it actually is, at least for her any way. The demon was punching and stomping the ground with all of his might. Even as far away as she was, Sinon could feel the tremors in the ground. Not only that but it was preform large sweeping motions with it's wings to disperse the players. Sinon almost instantly noticed that the tanks were having a hard time saying up against the boss.

"Support the tanks at all cost." Sinon stated to her players as she turned her head to face them. Her arrow was still loaded when her subordinates looked back at her. Her eyes meet their and SInon instantly saw the confusion in their eyes but Sinon was surprised but their response. Not even questioning her a second all of her guildmates did as they were told. They have been confused at Sinon's command but the still carried it out.

They were loyal, more loyal then Sinon could have ever guessed. Even though SInon wasn't the strongest member of the guild they followed her without hesitation, as if they were her subordinates. Sinon brought her bow back up and let the arrow fly. Aim for accuracy wasn't a problem here as the skill she equiped to it was a homing skill. Either it would hit it's mark or it would taken down in it's attempt to.

The latter happen as Sinon had expected it to but she had anticipated this. Sinon readied an arrow on to her bow and it duplicated almost instantly. It was one her best skills, duel shot. The arrows would separate from each other then curved to where Sinon had aimed to. If all goes well then the boss would have to use two of its appendages to take out her arrows. But alas the boss used another one of it's aces. Sinon had forgotten all about until now but it was a close ranged skill so not like it would have affected her, if anything it would have affected one of the DPS players.

A black fire enveloped the place right in front of the demons head. It incinerated both of Sinon's arrows in a second but Sinon saw a gleam of light appeared behind the black flame that was slowly dwindling out. As soon as the flame disappear Sinon saw a blur of a player run past the demons head. It was followed by a red mark on the boss's face. This mark wasn't like the marks on its torso. This one was one made by a player. Sinon's eyes followed to where the player was just in time to catch Asuna land gracefully on the ground before flames erupted out of the boss.

XXXX

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter and thank you all for reading it!

If you have questions or concerns please feel free to tell me

Next chapter will be up in a few

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	121. Entrap

June 20, 2023

-Sinon, Asuna, Diavel, Klein, Lynd, Heathcliff, Ran, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Godfree-

While watching the flames envelope the huge demon, Sinon hastily pulled out another arrow and loaded it onto her quiver. There would be no use in firing it now as it couldn't be damaged during it's transformation, it had been that way ever since around floor ten. However, she wouldn't be shooting this arrow, it was a precautionary measure. One that everyone else in her guild followed immediately after her.

Sinon barely breathed as she watched the boss transform in front of her very eyes. The boss's nose slow pushed itself back into the demon's head, making it look a lot more like a human yet even more terrifying. Though it's face was more human it did not mean that it was completely human as it face was completely disfigured. Somehow everything was just slightly off of where it was supposed to be.

The necklace of skulls below the neck start to glow purple and black as the boss evolve yet further. Two feathered wings start to grow out of it's back in addition to the other useless wings. These looked as they could fly but as Sinon looked the wings weren't feathers at all, they blacken something. Sinon's best guess was a gruesome one, human flesh. With these two wings the Demon kicked off into the air, then it open it's mouth and a torrent of black flames came out. Unlike the ones previously, these flames easily could touch something halfway across the boss or even all the way across.

Sinon's eyes widen almost immediately. The demon was too far in the air to get hit by melee attacks, even if the were using jumping skills. It was all up to her and her squads on whether or not this boss was dealt with swiftly and flawlessly. Adrenaline was all that she was running off of now. If she had been thinking how she usual did then there was no way in hell she would be able to give out commands nor would have said what she had. "Attack now, give it all you have!" Sinon screamed with authority.

"We'll give it a storm of centuries." Said one of the players near to her. Sinon didn't bother to look but greatly appreciated what he had just said. His tiny little pun had brought her mind back into the present and made it sane. No matter what she would need at least some of her brain to not falter. All she needed to know now was how much of her brain to actually use. She couldn't overthink the situation to much but underthinking it would be even worse.

Letting another arrow fly up into the air, Sinon quickly grasped her surroundings. The other players were organizing and attempting to form a attack formation but to no prevail. They would have to land the demon before they could attack it. This of course meant Sinon would have to figure something out.

They had gotten into this problem multiple times before as flying bosses weren't the most rare thing ever. The problem was that they had usually ended up using one of Saffi's random trinkets. Without Saffi here it meant that she had no random trinkets to bail her out. Loading in another arrow, Sinon looked at the players around her, or more specifically in her guild.

Including her they had four bow and arrow users. They were all fairly competent and Sinon would have to say that at least one of the was better than she was. Three shuriken users, two of them brothers if she could remember correctly. Three of them were throwing knife users, what she had been before the bow was in the picture. A javelin user, Sinon had really had time understanding why he was in their guild but he was proficient at his skill so she didn't complain. A jack of all traits, he would be whatever Sinon asked him to and a boomerang user.

"Hold it!" Sinon commanded, "and fire." A unison attack was what Sinon had decided upon. It could either go really good or really bad. She had to attempt to do it as if it worked then they would be in a much better situation. But if it didn't then they would have just lost all of the weapons they just used. This wouldn't hurt most players as their weapons were expendable but the boomerang user and the javelin user would be greatly affected by this.

As she had feared and well, expected the boss did take out all of their weapons in one blow. A very sinister black lightning had erupted out of it's mouth and chained itself between of their attacks. The effect was almost spontaneous as all of the weapons were reduced into small puffs of smoke and dust. Sinon out a mental sigh. It wasn't going well and for her first raid battle as their leader, she had hoped for a much better turn of events.

"What do you need?" Diavel asked as he came out of nowhere.

"Time, as much as you can get me." Sinon stated, unfazed by the sudden appearance.

"You heard her men, don't let the boss touch a single one of them!" Diavel shouted over all of the chaos. The effect was almost instantaneous, all of the players recollected themselves and start to get the boss's attention. "I hope you have a plan." Diavel stated curtly before he took off without leaving Sinon time to respond.

She knew what needed to be done, she didn't know how exactly but she knew the end goal, get the demon out of the air. This was a feat, that hopefully she could accomplish, one that she practically needed to accomplish. "Magi, hold you fire, throw your next boomerang right after it shoot my next arrow!" Sinon shouted. She heard a got it from not too far away then she let her air fly. This was no ordinary arrow, once it hit anything, no matter if it was the target or not it would explode in a white puff of smoke. It worked exactly as planned, though Sinon couldn't tell then end result as well, the was a white cloud of smoke block her view.

"Where did you hit it?" Sinon called out.

"Nicked one of it's wings, doubt it did much." Magi stated once he had his arrow back in his hand.

"Everyone who can put up a smokescreen do so when I say, everyone else throw your weapons immediately afterwards, Got it!" Sinon heard a large roar come from both her guild and the demon. Quickly loading her arrow, she activated the same skill that she had used once it became available again. "Go!" Sinon shouted as she as she activated the skill. Sinon watched as the projectiles cover the air between her and the boss.

The effect was instantaneous as a sheet of all colors of smoke covered the air. In order to protect himself the demon punched all of the first wave out of the air, but this just created a large amount of smoke. Under a cloak of smoke, the rest of the projectiles went seamlessly into the demon. Before the dust even cleared Sinon could tell that they hadn't accomplished their goal as the demon was still up in the air.

"Again." Sinon stated as she loaded another arrow onto her quiver. After the smoke cleared Sinon saw what damage they had done. All but one of the skulls on it's neck were broken further than they had been. In addition to that Sinon saw multiple cut marks on the demon's working wings. Her plan had work. She felt giddy at the sight of this but it wasn't enough to make her jump for joy or escape her facade.

"Go!" Sinon shouted again. Luckily the boss still hadn't learn from last as the effect was instantaneous and the same. While watching the events above her unfold, Sinon load another projectile onto her quiver as did the other boy users. All of the players in her guild were ready to attack once the fog clear. Like last the boss still hadn't fallen so Sinon repeated her actions from last time and the time before. This time however the boss fell to the ground with a surprisingly light thud.

Once the smoke clear she saw the boss running at her but before it could reach her, Diavel and his shield blocked it. Sinon let out a sigh of relief, it was over. Even she would spend probably the next five to ten minutes in the boss room, the hard part for her was over. She could relax for a bit, but she didn't. Her and the rest of the guild raised their weapons to support the other players.

XXXX

Commander Sinon reporting for duty!

Hope you all liked this chapter

Next chapters will be up next Sunday

Have a wonderfully amazing week

-Kirk


	122. Essay

June 21, 2023

-Sinon and Saffi-

"How'd you boss battle go?" Saffi asked once she saw Sinon had entered her 'office'. She didn't like that she called it an office but she had to seem at least somewhat like a leader. The room and use of the room more resembled an all purpose gym, especially now that she had completely her tennis court. In a few weeks she would also be adding in a volleyball court, something that she had been inch to play for a long time now.

Saffi looked up to see that Sinon's face didn't show one of pleasure, if anything it was one of severe annoyance but to be fair she did just face a boss. Resisting the urge to saw anything on the matter, Saffi return to throw the ball that she had in her hand against the wall. Saffi must have went through this motion at least ten times before Sinon had collected her thoughts and walk further into the office. Without stopping what she was doing, Saffi looked over to the right at Sinon.

"You knew didn't you?" Sinon asked as her head slight tilt of to one side. Their eyes connect for a brief second and Saffi could tell that Sinon was analysing her with every fiber of her being. There was no way she could hide her knowledge though that didn't mean she couldn't have any fun.

"Know what?" Saffi asked as she continued to bounce the ball against the wall. Besides for their short sentences, the ball was the only thing breaking the silence. Saffi tried her best to conjure up a confused face but She sincerely doubt that it fooled Sinon even for a second, to be fair she doubted that it could have ever fooled anyone much less Sinon.

"You know what I'm talking about, you knew that this boss battle would be hard." Sinon stated, obviously annoyed. Her voice was now breaking up a bit but as far as Saffi could tell Sinon was mad with Sinon in fact, Saffi couldn't tell what emotions Sinon was conveying at the current moment. In the real world the majority of people Saffi talked to were awfully emotionless, but she was to, it just ran in the job description.

"I didn't even go to the boss meeting, how would I know." Saffi stated as she tried her best to pull of a look of cluelessness, but the end result was more of what you would find in an anime. Her head was even tilted off to the side. Saffi had never been able to fake emotions of any kind, though it didn't annoy her as much as it confused her. Almost all of her life she had had cameras on and yet she didn't know who to fake even the simplest of emotions such as sadness.

"Oh, come off it, I know you know, just stop playing dumb and we can get down to business." Sinon stated curtly. It was now painfully obvious that she was annoyed to quite possibly the highest of calibers. Saffi held her breath for a few choice seconds. Now she would be done with it, though she usually was one not to do anything seriously, she would have to now. This was something that she knew that she would eventually have to do as she was the leader of a guild, one of the most important ones at that. Catching the ball one last time, Saffi quick non scoped directly at SInon, who knocked it away with her left hand. "What was that for!" Sinon sounded more alarmed than annoyed.

"That was a test, one that you passed just like the one before that." Saffi stated as plopped herself down onto her comfy chair. "That boss battle was a test one that you passed with flying colors, if Diavel is to be believed." Saffi stated with a smile. "And yes I knew it was going to be hard." A faint look in her eyes would easily tell Sinon that she was being ingenuous at the moment.

Sinon stared at her for a moment as she collect her thoughts before she started to speak. "You wanted my first boss battle to be hard so you could see how I would deal with commanding under stress." Sinon said after gluing all the pieces together. "So you just threw me into an extremely hard boss battle, where I could have failed immensely and died!" Sinon exclaimed. She wasn't sure if she should thank Saffi or punch, either one seemed like it would be justified.

"Did you really think I was going to go easy on you now, come on, even you can't believe that." Saffi said as she walked over to Sinon and patted her on the head. This wasn't exactly the easiest thing to do as even though she was almost decade older than her Saffi was at least a head short, and that was on a good day. "You won, and without any deaths, you did good, be proud." Saffi stated as she picked up the ball of the ground.

"You didn't even let me have any practice with commanding, that was my first time, weren't you afraid I was going to fail." Sinon stated. That was true as Saffi really didn't talk much of the members or do much of anything besides tell them which members would be participating in the raids. Saffi was a huge fan just letting do whatever the hell they wanted as, as long as they had a high enough level, they would be able to fight.

But this did create one problem as since they never did anything as a guild it was up to the members to bond with each other. Saffi had made sure when recruiting members to make them have a respectable amount of social skills but there was one person who this wasn't the case with. Sinon didn't really talk other members outside of Silica. That was part of the reason that she had let Silica in the guild. Saffi could tell that Silica was a every likeable and social person but most of all she was Sinon's friend.

However, Silica was not yet at a high enough level to participate in the raids so Sinon was alone in these regards. This didn't really make the other members of the guild not follow her but it made Sinon rather uncomfortable. Even though Sinon would never complain about something like that Saffi knew it to be true. Saffi had taken time to get to know Sinon as a person and she knew that without being pushed to interact with people she wouldn't.

"Think back to when we were recruiting, do you think I would send you to your doom?" Saffi asked rhetorically. When they first made their guild they had a lot requests to join their guild, somewhere near fifty. Though Saffi was flattered by the amount of people wanting to be in her guild, whoever she had no intention of making the guild as large as the Knights of the Blood Oath. In fact as it stands to day she had just over twenty members in her guild.

They had good though a recruiting process that was much like getting a job in the real world. She and Sinon gave each of them an interview, asking a few vital questions while also trying to get to know them. Then they would access their abilities. But when they were choosing people to pick their to ways diverged. Sinon wanted the best players while not having the arrogant ones. Though Saffi didn't wanted the arrogant ones she didn't go off of skills. She went off of personality. You can train some to become better but you can't make some change their personality.

"You recruited members based on compatibility not skill." Sinon stated as though she had just been smack in the head multiple times. "You recruited members that would follow me even if they didn't know me or trust me, why, wouldn't be easier just to have a second in command that is likeable?" Sinon asked as she looked towards Saffi.

Saffi looked down towards the ground and made her way back to her comfy chair. Once there she plopped herself down onto the cushioned chair with an audible landing sound. Placing both of her hands on her knees, she looked up back at Sinon. She raised her left hand to wipe her silver hairs out of her face and Sinon could tell she was choosing the right words to say to Sinon at the very moment.

"I wanted you, you remind me of someone who I want to be." Saffi stated with a solemn look her eyes. Before Sinon could say anything she started to speak again Saffi start to speak again, "Your stronger than I was at your age, You're your own boss even in a world created by someone else, Somehow you keep your emotions in check even when it makes hard for you to do so, You're... you're the person who I wanted to be but never got the chance." Saffi stated as she looked at Sinon. There was quite of few moments of silence before Saffi broke it with speaking once again.

"I want you to command the next boss raid , you don't have to but I want you to." Saffi stated.

"I will but can I ask you one question?" Sinon asked, waiting for Saffi to give her permission. After a slight shake of the head Sinon began to speak again, "Where were you yesterday then?"

Saffi let out a girlish chuckle. Pulling herself together once more she opened her mouth, "I went down to the lower floors to have a break, you should to sometime."

XXXX  
Hope you all enjoyed this Chapter!

We'll be get to Asuna soon, doubt worry

Next chapter will be up in a few

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	123. Example

June 25, 2023

-Kirito and Lizbeth-

Kirito ran his hands over the whole of his face while Lizbeth reached up to one of the swords displayed on the walls. It had been forever since Kirito had seen the sword, at least more days than he cared to count. Finally done running his hands over his face he averted his eyes to the blacksmith of was currently offering him the sword. It took a couple of moments to register what was happening but once he did, he quickly but gently retrieved the sword from her hands. "Thank you." Kirito said once he had placed it in his inventory.

"No problem, is there anything else you need?" She asked. Without even attempting to open his mouth Kirito shook his head no the turned to walk out of the shop. This only served to make Lizbeth wonder as it didn't really seemed all the authentic. But yet again Lizbeth didn't know him that well so he wouldn't be stopped by her. However, she did say something different to him as he left the store than other times. "Good luck out there." Lizbeth called after him. Her voice was soft and pesante, most likely meant to be southing.

Without turning his head to say goodbye, Kirito left the shop the immediately went to the plaza to teleport up to a higher floor. The front lines had progressed a lot since he had last now, as they were already into the mid thirties. Kirito didn't know what floor he was currently on but he knew that it wasn't one of the front line floors as the players here seemed a lot more relaxing. Taking in one last picture of the floor Kirito teleport up to floor thirty.

Not even taking in a moments notice to recognize that the scenery has changed, Kirito walked to his inn room, which was thankfully not too far away. Over the last couple of days Kirito had been getting rid of everything that he didn't want, in or outside of his inventory. This meant his apartment back on floor seventeen, who was now owned by Argo. She seemed uncannily willing to take the apartment, though she didn't want to pay any money. Instead she offered him some information on how the front lines had changed. From the little that Argo had told him Kirito knew that it nothing was like the way he had left it. After not that long of a walk, or at least in his mind, Kirito open the door to his inn room and stepped inside

It was just as he had left it, as Kirito had made sure to make it so that no one could enter. In addition to that he had also rented it for a couple of weeks to insure that any items accidently left outside of his inventory would not be deleted all the way. This was an extra measure that probably no one other than Kirito had taken as most people kept their items inside their inventories and this was true for except for a particular choice few.

Kirito tapped the wall left to the door and the lights came one. They reveled and small room but anything his apartment, it actually had some light. Inside of it was just enough room for two nightstands and a single bed. As inn owner had said, this is a room for sleeping only, no room to do anything else. However, Kirito didn't plan on sleeping in the room as he wasn't sleepy. In fact he hadn't been for days and he knew this was a problem.

The last time this had happen to him was back when he left the front lines for the first time. During the brief period of time he had been grinding to insanity, or at least near there. This was extremely dangerous more than Kirito could have ever imagined then but looking back on it now he could tell that he was stretching himself a little too thin. He was grinding almost eighteen hours day and that was when he did get sleep. But most of the time he would forgo sleep in favor of evading nightmares. This time was different as he would be sleeping for a different reason, at least not until he emptied his bed.

On his bed lay five different items. They were all different as the closest to that had similarities to each other were the two shields, however the shields were of different uses. But they were all the same in the fact that Kirito had them out and in why he had them out. He would never dare use any of these items they were worth much more to him then even the sword he was currently using. They each held some sentimental value to him.

Kirito took out the sword he had retrieved from Lizbeth and placed it on the bed with the others. It had been Coper's sword made by Lizbeth. After he had died he had given it to Lizbeth to display in her shop but now he wanted to see it again. Not was it made by Lizbeth but it was his first named sword, Remorse, Slayer of Lost Comrades. It was as if the game was telling him the one of his friends would die, only Kirito didn't take the clue. Without thinking about it for another second he placed it back with the rest of the items and looked at the others.

The first ones his eyes would is way to was a small dagger. No doubt the smallest and probably the cheapest item of the lot Kirito still handle it with care. It was dropped from the floor twelve field boss, a boss that Kirito particularly hated. However, this dagger only brought good memories to Kirito's mind as while looking at it he remember how ecstatic Ducker was when he had gotten the drop.

Holding the blade just enough so that he could feel the sharp edge press against his skin, Kirito delved into his thoughts. But he only did this for a second. It's not that his thoughts weren't the place to be, it was that Kirito didn't want to be there. Kirito looked at the ornate blade in his hands. It was positively stunning in it's metal work. Let his finger gracefully slide across the flat part of the blade, Kirito could feel all of the complex designs put into the ornate blade. Taking one last look at it, Kirito put it back on the bed and retrieved the item next to it.

It was a spear or more specifically it was a javelin. Unlike with the last two Kirito actually had no idea where this weapon came from as Sasamaru must have obtained it before Kirito had met him. This was a spear that suited Sasamaru more when Kirito had first met him as it was more intend to be a throwing spear but Kirito had seen it put to good use by Sasamaru. Kirito knew if that they would have been a alive for a little bit longer Sasamaru would have gotten an upgrade.

Returning the javelin to it's resting place he picked up it's brother, or rather it's sister. It was quite a bulky lance however, this served is uses pretty well as it was used to be an offensive weapon. Sachi used as some sort of secondary shield, while it was less effective it also had the capabilities of actually damaging a foe. He had seen Sachi pull this off a handful of times, even once against him and suffice it to say but, this was a perfect weapon for the rather timid girl. Not taking time to reflect on the weapon much longer he placed it on the bed then look at the two items left.

Picking up the bigger of the two Harry, looked at the rather battleworn shield. Unlike Sachi, Tetsuo had taken the complete opposite approach. Sporting a Club and shield Tetsuo was pure offense while Sachi was pure defense. Looking at the various dents and scratches on the shield, Kirito could tell that Tetsuo had been in possession of this shield for quite a long time. Putting the shield on his arm, Kirito could see why tetsuo used it as a weapon. It honestly felt as though it was one, but before he could analyze it more Kirito took it off and placed it on the bed.

Reaching his hand over to grab the last item, Kirito looked at the simple blue and gold shield. Unlike all of the other items on the bed, this one did not belong to a friend but a player that he had watched die, Rose. all of the other items belonged to players that were no longer with him to be his emotional support, but this one was different. This shield was the only one he had actually used in combat before however, this was not the reason Kirito kept it in his possession.

It was a reminder to him. Though he knew the girl had gone willingly, he couldn't help but feel responsible. He had given the girl a false sense of hope only for it to be taken away in an instant. The shield wasn't in memory of the girl, as Kirito knew that over time he would think less and less about that event. It was to remind Kirito that no matter how safe he was or felt, life could be taken away in an instant. This lesson he would take to his grave.

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You'll like it?

Kirito can remember each death basically only he had witnessed

Next chapters will be out in a week

Have a wonderfully week!

-Kirk


	124. Explosion

June 30, 2023

-Asuna-

Asuna stretched until she felt it in her lower back, then let out a loud exhale. Using the stability of her next to help her up, Asuna got out of her chair and wiped what would sweat off of her forehead. Since enter this made up world, Asuna didn't complain as much as she would have in the real world. Not that she did in the real world a lot, as she didn't like to, however sometimes her emotions got the better of her. But if there was one thing she could complain about it was how hot this floor was.

Their guild base was currently stationed on floor twenty six, which much to Asuna's dismay was a desert. She didn't know who deserts were in other games but it Sword art online in particular they were unfavorable to say the least. Though to be fair the desert in the game probably simulated what the deserts were like in real life. This however, did not make Asuna like them anymore as she used the game as a method of escaping from the real world, only to find that deserts are exactly the same.

But that was negligible compared to what she was about to go through. Asuna would have loved being the forward operating commander, if she didn't have do all the mundane stuff. It felt as though she had a drop and in many ways it was. Long hours and no pay was Asuna's reward, though she did find commanding people to be a real good distraction, as she was quite good at it. What she was not good at was all the preparing and stuff.

In two days time they would have a boss battle, and that meant for lack of better words a lot of homework. From picking who to send into the boss battle all the way to devising attack strategies. Asuna was far from a strategist as she really didn't like it, she was never one for the technical side of things. With technology all that matter was that she liked it, she didn't care about all the other stuff, heck sometimes the color meant more to her. Without much contemplation Asuna exited her room and walked down a couple of long hallways before she enter the head office of the building.

"Ah, Asuna thank you for coming, we have something to discuss with you." Heathcliff stated as he saw Asuna walk into the room. Upon walking in Asuna took a quick surveillance over the people in the office. Besides Heathcliff, there was two other people in the room, one of which she knew. The one that she knew was Diavel, the second in command while the other one she had seen around the guild before. If she had to guess she was the tailor or something like that, but judging by her looks Asuna assumed she was the tailor. Asuna walked to the middle of the circular room and waited for one the players to speak.

"We called you here today because we want to make this your uniform." Diavel stated as his hands gestured towards the unknown female player. Before the female player had even finished materialized the article or articles of clothing Asuna had already made up her mind a million times over. There was no way in hell that she would ever be caught wearing something that resembles what the player had in her arms

"Hard pass." Asuna said as polite as she could muster up in the split second that she blurted out. This did not mean much of anything, in fact it was more curt than polite. Asuna could tell it was curt not by the sound of her voice but by the looks on the other player's faces. From what Asuna could gather she would say that they looked both disappointed and shocked at the same time. All except for the tailor, she particularly looked hurt.

"Asuna this is merely to raise the player's moral, you don't-" But Diavel was cut off almost immediately after Diavel finished saying the word moral. In fact no play other himself could have heard the other two words that came out of his mouth, and he wasn't even sure if he had heard it with his ears or his mind. But he knew one thing for sure, the outburst that came from Asuna's mouth was going to be heard and absorbed by his face.

"Moral, Moral!" Asuna was livid. She didn't know what to think or say but she knew one thing for sure, all rational thought had already left. "I never thought you'd steep down to that low, I mean to be enticed by a teenagers body." Asuna stated as she accented her body the best she could. Her mother had taught her how to do this correctly of course, however Asuna never listen to thing her mother said. It was either advise on how to make it in the corporate world, or how to attract the right kind of guy. You know, the one with copious amounts of gold spilling out of his pockets.

"Please Asuna, we are merely at fault here, I will have a new uniform design for you." Heathcliff said in a soothing manner. Asuna knew that he wasn't the one who involved himself with external affairs but if he did he would be excellent at it. If Asuna wasn't fuming at the current moment his soothing, calm voice would have negated her madness but she was past the effects of his voice. One thing that she wouldn't take was being treated like a girl, even if it wasn't one purpose.

"No." Asuna snapped. This did not make the others jump as they were probably quite aware of Asuna's state of mind at the current moment. Restraining the urge to tell them off again, Asuna calmed herself down. She knew that her state wouldn't last much longer but it would suffice in the current situation. "I would like to choose my own dress if that is okay with you?" Asuna asked.

Without a doubt, everyone in the room was waiting for another to answer Asuna's question. Her last sentence sounded oddly calm compare to everything else she had said and this was making everyone else scare, as it should. It was like they thought answer the question was a trap and Asuna was about to assuage their thoughts. She would definitely wait to see which one of them had enough courage to speak first.

"I understand, but I would be honored if we would be able to have one last chance at designing you a outfit for the raids." Diavel said choosing each word with the utmost care. This coupled with the face the he spoke very slow made his sentance come out as though he was appealing to Asuna and in a way he was. His sentence made Asuna delve into her thoughts. Now that she was somewhat calm her thoughts were somewhat rational, at least for her level of rationality.

Asuna looked over to Heathcliff to try and decide what his emotions were doing at the current moment. But he was stolid, no emotions escaped his face, maybe apart from contemplation but that was the only one that even showed so much as a hint. Diverting her attention to the tailor Asuna could tell that she was trying her best to look official. This however, wasn't going so well since she wasn't hiding her emotions. Asuna could tell that she was angry yet afraid at the same time. These two emotions made a rather weird effect on the tailor's face, one that Asuna hoped would perpetuated inside her mind.

"I would like to have some time to think it over, if that is alright with you." Asuna stated. Now that she was thinking again she had came to the conclusion that yelling and screaming at her boss's wasn't exactly the best course of action to take, however she wasn't about to bow to them either. Instead of waiting for them to saw yes, Asuna immediately turned on the spot and walked out of the room without another word.

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Ah, Asuna How do you do?

Nevermind her, how did you all like this Chapter?

There is going to be a total of six chapters coming out this week since I have spring break in a week!

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	125. Estrangement

June 30, 2023

-Asuna and Lizbeth-

Feeling as though she weighed a thousand grams, Asuna plopped down onto Lizbeth's couch. She just felt exhaust and yet oddly awake. Gone was the smoke coming out of her ears, the long walk to Lizbeth's had done that. But now she needed to figure out what to do, or how to rectify what she had done. Though she did not feel that she had to do this, her mind knew otherwise.

"What did you do know?" Lizbeth stated as she looked over at Asuna. She had become accustomed to the usual burst of Asuna seemingly coming out of the blue. This kind of annoyed her to some degree but that was only because Asuna was well walking into her bedroom without knocking first. But this meant near nothing to Lizbeth as out of all the people she had met inside the game she would call Asuna to be her only true friend.

Lizbeth continued to sharpen the axe that was currently in her hands. While listening to the constant grindings of metal against metal she looked up at Asuna, who was now half laying on her bed. All that Lizbeth could see was Asuna's breastplate and the lower half of her legs. Looking back to the weapon that was currently in her hands, she decided that it would be best if she stopped for the time being.

After the months of being in the game she had became a quite competent blacksmith and no longer need someone to distract her while she was smithing. Now she frankly found it distracting and she would mess more when she was carrying on a conversation. Lizbeth picked up the axe to inspect it one last time and found that she was nearly done, however, she would rather hear what Asuna' had just done.

"You know I don't wash the sheets, right?" Lizbeth asked as she walked over to Asuna and consequence her bed. Lizbeth watched as Asuna jumped off the bed then took a brief and hasty look at Lizveth. A smirk enveloped Lizbeth's face and Asuna immediately fell back onto the bed. If there was one thing that Lizbeth had to say about her relationship between them two was that she loved to tease Asuna as she was incredibly susceptible to it. Even after the countless times that they have been together over the last couple of months, she still wasn't used to the many different ways Lizbeth teased her.

"I hate you." Asuna stated defeatedly. Lizbeth saw the hint of a smile escape from Asuna lips and she showed her the same, although her's was a lot more than an inkling. Asuna twisted her head on her neck, making an audible crack. After the sound had dissipated she sat up and sighed. As it turned out, Lizbeth's first observation was correct, she had done something, but what was it.

"Yeah, but you love me to." Lizbeth said nonchalantly as she plopped herself down next to Asuna. Though her sheets may be clean it didn't mean that her bed was worn out. It served as her couch and with the number of times Asuna has visited, Lizbeth wasn't surprised that she hadn't bought a couch yet. "What did you Asuna?" Lizbeth asked again, this time with more interest in her tone.

Asuna looked up at Lizbeth with a quizzical look. It was the kind of look that a sibling would give to an older sibling when they were told not to do something. It was as if the word why was escaping from her face but it didn't escape from her mouth. She instead replaced the words with others but not before she delved into her inventory. Not even taking her a second, Asuna materialized a piece of clothing or rather an outfit. "I tried to leave without it but Diavel had sent it to me as a gift after I left, it's a shame I can't not accept gifts." Asuna stated as she handed the item to Lizbeth

"That seems like a first world problem." Lizbeth stated as she took the clothing into her hands. From the moment that she touched it she could tell it was made from some the best materials around. Even if she wasn't tailor she could still tell the difference of price between the clothes that she was wearing and the clothes in her hands. "This must have been really expensive." Lizbeth said quietly to herself as she continued to examine the red and white outfit.

"Yet again we are in another world." Asuna smirked as she looked towards Lizbeth. Lizbeth let out a slight giggle then went back to looking at the outfit. Grabbing it by what looked to be the collar, Lizbeth stretch it out in front of her. Taking a moment to see if she could wear it, Lizbeth finally decided that it might me a little to tight in certain places. Asuna had a lot more curves compared to herself, this would probably make the waist a little too constricting.

"You have to try it on." Lizbeth said as she stood and pulled Asuna to her feet. Without even looking at her she could tell that Asuna was already trying to protest, but Lizbeth took care of it instantly. Taking the clothes that she had in her had she tossed them right back into Asuna's hands. "I don't care what your reason is, your trying on this outfit right here, right now." Lizbeth said in her most demanding of voices.

"But, I don't want to." Asuna barely came up with words in time.

"I don't care, I won't rest until I see you in this outfit, now come on, change." Lizbeth said with a gleam in her eyes. It was as if she was anticipating a wonderful sword that she had just made. This, however, was no sword, no it would be more spectacular in all ways. A quick glance at Asuna told her that Asuna had already given up. "Now come on, change already." Lizbeth said excitedly.

"Could you leave?" Asuna asked timidly.

"You could go out, oh wait, yeah sure." Lizbeth said as she scratched her head walked out of her room. She did a couple of stretches as she waited for Asuna to change. This ordeal wasn't nearly as long as it was in the real world as all you had to do was select a couple of buttons and walla, you had on new clothes. But nevertheless she gave Asuna a generous amount of time. After she heard the final sound of applying equipment, Lizbeth walked back into her room/forgery.

As she had predicted the scene was breathtaking. Apart from the usual mismatch items that are in her room normal the was Asuna in all of her glory. The main color of her outfit was solid white, this continued from the rim of her collar all the way down to her shoes. In fact her shoes were all white. She had on socks the went passed her knee and stopped at her mid thigh with two red strips and another half of one. On the side of her socks was a red pedant, the sign of The Knight of the Blood Oath.

And now it all made sense. The outfit was from her guild and she didn't want to wear it since it wasn't the most her type of outfit. Besides not having the loose form shirt and vest it also showed off just a tiny bit of her legs. This was something not present in her last outfit as she had leggings that covered that along with a skirt. But even still the outfit was stunning and Lizbeth knew that Asuna finally thought the same. "Bet you like it now." Lizbeth stated with a grin quickly spreading across her face.

"Yeah I guess… I don't know." Asuna said as she looked away from Lizbeth, she was obviously hard at contemplating something. Lizbeth loved this side of Asuna more than the others. Over getting to know her she could tell that Asuna was excellent at putting up a facade. But after a while Lizbeth could see through it to see that though Asuna may be brash and upfront she had a shy and timid side. It was perhaps these traits that Asuna tried her darndest to cover up. But then Asuna did something that Lizbeth would have never thought Asuna would ever do, she twirled.

"Where did you learn to do that?" Lizbeth asked as she walked towards Asuna.

"My mother gave dancing lessons when I was a kid, I guess they might come in handy sometimes." Asuna grinned as she looked towards Lizbeth. Her face looked entirely different now, as she was finally in some sort of control. Asuna inhaled deeply then started to speak again, "I guess I could try it out for a while, now what's going on in your life?" Asuna asked.

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Hey look it's Lizbeth you haven't seen her since two chapters ago!

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter will be up to tomorrow or at most tuesday

Have a great day x 2!

-Kirk


	126. Explanation

July 2, 2023

-Asuna-

If there was one thing that almost everyone hated was that looking at her back took a great deal of effort, a lot more than she would like to give. But none the less she had to give it. There were very few ways to make it less annoying and only one of which she knew in the game. Taking what she had learnt in real life she grabbed another mirror, moveable this time and place it about five feet away from the other one with the foil side facing in.

Looking at her… well, ass she knew that she would have to take back some few choice words. This annoyed her slightly but, she knew that she had a plethora of things to apologize for and that one comment was just the tip of the iceberg. She had to admit that the uniform their tailor had made for her was as stunning as she could have hoped for. But this wasn't new to her as her mother and father showered her basically everything she wanted, with the exception of some peace and quiet.

Asuna's eyes fell to the yellow strips of cloth that were stretch in a bunch of different places across her up torso. The two ones on each her arms she had already seen before as they were quite obviously shown when the outfit was presented to her. They were yellow with a red strip in the middle and on each end of it. The cloth formed to ninety degree angles or at least as close as they could get, just below her shoulders. Both of the top ones connect to her shirt just above her breast plate while the lower ones wrapped around her arms.

Now that she could see the back of her outfit she knew that these two pieces combined into one strip on each side. These red and yellow strips meet up with each other in the middle top of her back, just enough the she could reach with one of her hands. At this point they merge together then go north to Asuna's head for a while before stopping. With that seen, Asuna put the moveable mirror into her inventory and looked at herself in the one on the wall.

She at first was looking to see how the outfit looked on her for about the fourteenth and a half times before she just stopped. Instead of looking at the outfit she instead got lost in thought. The last time she had done this was back in the real world and if anything is was to delay the inevitable. Her mother would always buy her these extravagant outfits for dates that she was set up on and if she to say so herself, Asuna did not like these dates.

To be fair her mother had only start to give her these dates about when she was fourteen and a half years old. Over her time in the real world she had maybe six of seven of what her mother would like to call dates. But Asuna would never call them dates is she could get around it. They were more of business agreements or arranged marriages, neither of which she would have gotten much of a say in either.

Thankfully she only had to go through so many of them. There was a lot of things that Sword Art Online had given her and this one she was truly thankful for as she didn't know if she could sit through another one. But what irked her even more was that her mother never did that to her brother, not even once. It was like she was treating her special, and Asuna wasn't sure if it was the right type of special.

You know who your told your special when your a little, yeah, it wasn't anything like that in fact it didn't even feel patronizing. It kind of felt the exact opposite of that, at least in a negative way. Instead of her mother reassuring her that she was something special it was like she was trying to make her something special. It backfired in every single way imaginable.

Asuna really liked to do things on her own. That wasn't to say that she didn't want attention, but she wanted the attention given to of her own accord. Mother, unfortunately did not understand this or refused to accept it. Even after contemplating it for quite a while Asuna could not figure out why her mother was this way. Her mother didn't talk about her past all that much, the most that she had ever gotten out of her as how her and her father got married, and even then she left details out.

But her mother's life was her own and if she wanted to share she would in due course, as right Asuna had the sneaking suspicion that she couldn't tell it to her. That wasn't the only thing holding her back however as Asuna had somewhere to be in a couple of minutes, and she would be damned if she were late. At least she could make a good second impression on the tailor, who she would once remember the name of.

Taking one last look at her outfit Asuna exited her bathroom and made her way to the office chambers. She would be a couple minutes early but better late than sorry. Once she looked her door, Asuna tried to make the outfit look as clean as possible. It was highly possible that she may have been wearing it for a bit too long. Though yet again wouldn't that show that she truly liked it. Before entering the room Asuna choose the latter as she felt it was a least a little more honest.

"Thank you all for accept my request for an audience with you, I know my last one was less than acceptable." Asuna stated formally as she entered the room. Once she got to the middle of the room she present the three players inside with a bow. There was some good things to come from her mother in fact, one of them, was impeccable manners. That was of course when she used them which was almost never.

"No need to bow Asuna, we understand we were a little imperious last time, now what did you want to speak to us about?" Diavel asked. Asuna had absolutely no clue what imperious meant, to be fair her mother and father were very much math people. On the few occasions that Asuna did ask them for help in literature it didn't really lead to much. The most they could do was already done for them by spell check.

"Before I say that I would like to apologize to all of you, especially you, I'm sorry for my actions that day." Asuna said as she looked over to the tailor, she still didn't know her name. Come to think of it she could probably look in the guild directory right inside her menu. Asuna now official felt even more like an idiot than before.

"No need to, I understand that you weren't pleased with my last outfit and I have commissioned another." The tailor said as she held out another outfit. This one, instead of being the white and red that she was wearing had a vibrant blue thrown in the mix. Asuna opened her mouth to protest that she was fine with the one she was wearing, but the tailor caught her before hand. "Please, I insist." She said as she extend her arms out even further.

"Thank you." Asuna said as she took the cool blue outfit into her hands. She looked at it for a second, obviously trying to look a lot thought but then looked back up. "I would like to where the one I am currently wearing to the next boss raid if that is okay with you all." Asuna said as she bowed, even lower than last time.

As she came up from her bow she could see that the tailor was conflicted upon two parallels. Whether or not she wanted Asuna to wear it because she believed her or not to because she didn't. Seeing this Asuna took her own initiative and start to speak again, "Don't worry I have had time to break in this outfit, I truly do like it." Asuna stated as she bowed her head slightly. This was an understatement, she didn't like no, she loved. This was like an early birthday, she was grateful.

"If you do like it then I see no reason for you not to wear to the boss raid tomorrow but I do have another thing to ask of you." Diavel stated before he opened up his menu. "You have not yet sent me the people who you would like to take to the boss raid, when are you planning to do so." Diavel stated. Asuna took a quick glance at Heathcliff to that he was as stolid as ever but she could tell that he was not please.

"Straight away, I'm sorry I got caught up in all of this." Asuna said as she opened up her menu and sent the list.

"Understandable, now I would like you to review tactics for the raid tomorrow, this one was not as easy as we would have hoped." Diavel stated with a slight smile.

"Will do so right away." Asuna said as she left the office without them telling her to. Unlike last time however this one was implied while the other one was more of a door in face scenario.

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Yawn, I'm tired, sympathy to everyone else to has to wake up for school

Thank you all for reading!

Next chapter will be up the next time I wake up at the normal time

Have a great day! X 3

-Kirk


	127. Endowment

July 3, 2023

-Sinon, Asuna, Diavel, Klein, Lynd, Heathcliff, Ran, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Godfree-

Asuna slipped her hand underneath the yellow ribbon, or at least that what she had concluded they were. They weren't exactly that comfortable but sometimes you had to sacrifice comfort for fashion right? Well, that's at least one of the lessons her mother had tried to teach and like most of the others, she had not taken it to heart. Though the players behind her were probably a lot more inclined to follow her because it seemed as though she did.

Turning around, Asuna faced the whole of the front lines but she wouldn't be talking to all of them, just the front twenty. Diavel and Heathcliff already gave their inspiration speeches, which Asuna had to admit was an excellent idea on Diavel's behalf. However, she didn't not have the opportunity to do so even though she was in the front. If anything she was up there because she was one of the most well know players, perhaps in all of Aincrad if not the front lines.

Her job was to well command the offensive force, something that she immense pride in. One of her mother's sayings was to take pride in what you can do and excel towards what you can't. While her mother wasn't exactly the best person to go to for help with boys or literature, Asuna had to admit that she damn near impossible to stop. Maybe that was one of the reasons why her mother's advice was so daunting.

Returning herself to the present she looked towards the players directly in front of her. Eleven of them were chosen by herself from the guild she was, The Knights of the Blood Oath. This included both Kazuma and Godfree as lightweight tanks. Fuurinkazan guild was also present though there was only six of the ten there. There was a trio from a smaller guild and another one from a different guild. She didn't know these players that much but they looked as though they had been on the front lines for a good amount of time.

"You know to do." Asuna stated as she looked around. "On my count, Three, Two, One." Asuna said, with her voice project the last couple of words. All of the players under her command immediately went into the boss while she waited for them to do so. She would wait until all of them were passed her until she joined them. It helped, of course that her speed as unparalleled. Turning on her feet, Asuna ran into the boss room behind her subordinates.

Asuna looked at the boss as she ran as she couldn't help but be a little disappointed at its stature. If she hadn't been to the plan meeting for this boss she would have thought it to be easy but alas, Kayaba had different intentions. The boss was barely as tall as Asuna, if not a little shorter but she had to say that nothing else really lined up with the image in her mind of what the boss was supposed to be.

At the meeting she was told that the boss wield bow and arrows while also having a sword for close range combat if necessary and that was it. What Asuna had been expected was either a tiny scrawny looking boy with bow or a really ripped dude with a bow. But instead her eyes meet a man that was barely shorter than herself. Over one of his eyes he sported an eye patch and he donned a cloak over his entire body. It looked as though he was supposed to be some archer pirate hybrid.

"Rush in full speed, work as individuals this time, make sure you apart from everyone else." Asuna said as she brandished her sword from her sheath. She instantly took off in a run, she could faster however, she did not intend to just yet. Even if this was a game her stamina wouldn't allow her to go that fast for terribly long. But with that said, she still outsped practically everybody.

Asuna watched the boss as he start to attack by shooting arrows at them. There was to weird things about this action however. One was that his bow conjured up arrows when he pulled back the string, he didn't have to load them in. In addition to that making him faster, he also look as though he was moving at least four times the normal speed of a player, though Asuna just suspected this to be so he couldn't be overwhelm to easily.

The boss started to shoot hordes of arrows at Asuna and her subordinates. They weren't hard to avoid by any means but that didn't mean they weren't effective. The arrows continuously stunted their attack and slowly but surely were wearing them down. Eventually one player would make a fatal flaw and would pay for it but the boss didn't look as though he was prepared to wait for eventually.

Pointing his bow up towards the sky, he shot an arrow up straight above him. This arrows was unlike any of the arrows she had ever seen and that included Sinon's. It seemed as though it was ethereal or at least it was. When it reach the apex of its flight it started to rapidly multiply and shot out from the center one, which was now falling in slow motion. Asuna couldn't recall anything like that being told to her at the meeting and she instantly knew what she had to do. "Fall back now!" Asuna shouted.

Asuna knew that they would have a rather hard time escaping the area but this would not make Asuna reconsider. She knew her option was the best one they had at the current moment but that wouldn't mean she would follow it. Over the last couple of months she had changed and for the better as she was no longer selfish, at least not as selfish. The lives of her comrades were more important to her than anything, no matter the cost.

There was only one thing she could do however, aid the retreating players. The boss wasn't being as aggressive as Asuna would have thought but it was being more observant, as a sniper should be. It wouldn't settle for a subpar opening, no he wanted the best. Knowing this, Asuna took off at top speed to aid the players leaving the arrow storm. She did not know how she would aid them, but she did know that she would spend all of her energy to do so.

Asuna often found that whenever her mother tried to hard to be useful at something with her, she wasn't but her little lines of wisdom were probably some of the best advice Asuna had ever heard. Another came into play her as her mother had unknowingly created one for almost every situation. I don't care how you do it, just do it. Asuna had to admit that, this one had some serious bad implications when it came to academics and it also seemed that her mother had also taken into heart when infiltrating the corporate world.

Helping as many players as she could, Asuna's eyes didn't stray far from the boss. The boss now had the across his back in his sword in his hand, waiting for something. It seemed as though he was a cat poised to strike. Quickly making sure that the player she was helping was fine, Asuna ran over to the boss to make sure that if he moved then she wouldn't be far behind. But then it happened, in the blink of an eye, the boss started to charge at a player.

Not even taking the time to comprehend what was happening, Asuna's legs took off without her commanding her to. Asuna leaned into her sprint and kept an eye on the boss when she noticed something. The boss was faster than her not by much, but she could tell. Not only that but the boss once again had his bow out instead of his sword. Once he got about ten meters away from the player he unleashed an arrow that just barely missed the player's torso but that didn't mean it missed.

Over the loud screaming Asuna got within striking distance but right as she launched an attack the boss turned around, now with it's sword in the right and bow in the left. It quickly did a linear to make Asuna double back then grabbed onto it's quiver still with the sword in hand. The next couple of moments passed in a blur to Asuna. She vaguely remembered three things. One she told the player to run and get out. Two, the boss's arrow practically sliced her nose in half. Three, she retreated.

Now that she was back and safe, Asuna took time away from the boss and looked up towards the sky. The boss's arrow storm thing had finally subsided and dissipated. Asuna now had a plan. Her first attack would have been relatively successful if not for the arrow storm. But now she had an idea of a possible way to not make it as devastating. "Attack, full force, give it your all, the boss can't kill you in one shot." Asuna stated.

All of the players rushed the boss and for a fleeting second Asuna wished she had given this command after she had caught her breath but she was glad she hadn't. Not even taking time to get into her sprinting stance Asuna ran towards the boss like all the other players. She was glad that they had spread themselves out liked they had the first time, she had forgotten to tell them to do so.

Asuna felt a burn in her leg start to grow, it was as if she was sprinting in real life. But it didn't matter if she was in the game or not, both of them were real. Asuna watched as her subordinates slowly closed in on the boss. After just little bit the within striking distance and the boss had activated his arrow storm immensely close to the ground but thanks to Kazuma's quick thinking was dispatched almost immediately.

Looking towards the players she felt proud, like mother who had just watch one of their children's win a game of football. Asuna knew that the hardest part was still ahead of the but it was like the semi-finals, only the finals happen right after. Nevertheless Asuna order her subordinates to fall back as the boss start to glow a similar color to what the arrow spawner looked like.

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Thank you all for all the support you give this fan fic and in return, here's some Asuna

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter will most likely be Friday with a double upload

Have a great day! X 4

-Kirk


	128. Envision

July 3, 2023

-Sinon, Asuna, Diavel, Klein, Lynd, Heathcliff, Ran, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Godfree-

Asuna ran all the way back to Diavel, Ran and Tsubaki as that was what she did every Asuna did have the capacity to improvise, that was not something she would like to do in the face of an unknown foe. Instead of her facing the boss head on, Heathcliff would be leading his subordinates to do so. Once Ran or Tsubaki had a plan Asuna's forces would rush back in but until then they just supported Heathcliff's.

The boss was undergoing some sort of transformation though Asuna wasn't close enough to see anything besides the blinding light emitting from it. She paid this no mind however as she watched her subordinates move around rather than the boss. During this phase of the battle Asuna's commands are basically to do what they see fit as the was no formations or attack strategies for them to pull off.

Out of the corner of her eyes, Asuna say the blinding light dissipated, the boss was done transforming. This immediately made Asuna change her attention from her fellow players to the only enemy in the room. Now she would have all of her attention on the boss, in attempts to find a weakness. This however was usually void since both Ran and Tsubaki found them way faster than she did. In fact Asuna could only think of one time where someone besides them two had figured out a weakness and that was Saffi, the Leader of Storm of Centuries.

Asuna felt indifferent about the Storm of Centuries. They were a need part of the guild at time but at others it seemed as though they were just there. For instance a boss with high levels of defense will back their attacks void but if it flies then they deal more damage than Asuna's group. Storm of Centuries is strong and needed for every boss raid but Asuna didn't understand why the had two parties of people.

On a typical boss raid the total number of players was sixty or order there. The leaders of all of the major guilds agreed on this since they didn't want to make the raid to crowded but this also meant that every spot counted. Asuna commanded twenty three players, the most out of any section and sometimes she felt as though she needed more. Some of her strategies required more people to help out or a just a bigger strike force. In some of the early battles she had gotten help from some of the tanks however, in this one she didn't need help.

At times Asuna felt like the some of the support players could be better utilized in other areas. Asuna bet that if at times she didn't have enough players then the tanks would have exactly the same problem, maybe even more so. They had two less members than Asuna as Ran and Tsubaki fill those spots while having two leaders, one of which usual stayed back to command the boss raid as a whole.

But this was no time to for that as the boss and finally shown of his new skill, he could replicate himself. He did this four times to make a total of five bosses standing in front of them. However, none of them had weapons, it seemed as though during the transformation the boss had lost its weapons as none of them had the bow or sword. Asuna knew that this was probably a gimmick as Kayaba seemed to like to give his bosses that. Hell, even one of the main boss's mechanics was one.

Asuna watched the boss intently as she gripped her flamberge in her hands. Though she would like to wait for a strategy to come out of Ran or Tsubaki that didn't mean that she wouldn't run in when a player was in danger. Most players in the back were relaxed but not Asuna, she knew that the bosses were about to overwhelm them, she just didn't know how. She could tell from the the way they were walking. They were just walking looking around at the players with sniper like eyes, they were searching for an opening.

Just then one of the bosses broke off into a sprint at one of the tanks. The tank did as Asuna would have expected him to, he got into a stance then waited for a hit to come as all the players near him readied their weapons. Once the boss was within attacking distance he conjured up a sword, much like the arrow storm that he had been using before, the sword looked as though it was ethereal.

The boss attacked with amazing speed and precision, it was the player could do to dodge the linear that the boss produced. The player barely sidestepped the attack but the boss had another attack lined up already. Using his legs, the boss kicked of the ground with his right leg and kicked the players shield with his left. Asuna could tell that this wasn't an offensive tactic as it did barely anything. All it did was make the player stagger back a couple of decimeters, barely enough to be noticeable.

But it did as it was supposed to, his kick prevented the player from launching a counter attack. Once he was back on his feet and the player had ahold of his balance again the boss just started attacking the player without hesitation. The boss left no time for the player to try to counter attack, he was forced to hide behind his shield and sword. After about a couple of seconds the boss had disarmed him of his weapon and went in for a devastating overhead vertical. Asuna knew if that hit he would die, but so did the player. Reacting quickly the player got was far back as he could and intercepted the strike with his shield.

Something Asuna had never seen happen, happened before her every eyes, the boss cut the player's shield in half, reducing it to blue shards. Before the shards even disappeared the boss pulled his arm back and launched it forward to produce a linear aimed straight at the player's stomach. There was nothing the player or Asuna could do, but the player was saved, by Heathcliff.

Intercepting the attack, Heathcliff used his shield to ram the ethereal sword off of it's tracks. Heathcliff readied himself against the boss but found himself almost instantly overwhelmed. The boss attacked faster than anything Asuna had ever seen, hell it attack faster than she did. Not only that but it's attacks sporadic and had no sequence whatsoever. The boss was unpredictable and faster than herself, almost a perfect counter to Heathcliff.

Heathcliff kept trying to separate himself from the boss but with no luck. The boss was always right on his toes and kept striking at him. In the couple seconds of fast paced fighting that they had in, Heathcliff had got a scratch on his right forearm and one across his forehead. The one across his forehead barely missed killing him. This was one of the first times Asuna had seen him take damage and it seemed as though he was going to take more until and arrow skewered itself into it's leg, making it instantly shatter.

Asuna followed the arrow back to it's source and found Sinon, who had already loaded another arrow and was staring intently at another one of the bosses. During the short period of time that one boss had been attacking Heathcliff and the other tank, all four of the other bosses had chosen their prey. All of them had materialized the every same sword and was attacking similarly to the one that faced Heathcliff. Another one shattered right after Heathcliff's did, this time to a shuriken to the head. If Asuna had to guess it was Saffi who had done so.

"Full force attack, but leave lines open for the support to shoot them, they're our only chance, pair up." Asuna shouted over all of the ruckus. There wasn't much she could do but the little she could do was try to force the remaining three into bad situations. Asuna looked over at Ran and Tsubaki to see that they seemed to be in agreement with her. They both had their swords out and were running at the bosses. Not taking another second to linger, Asuna brandish her sword then ran towards the bosses.

As she was running she heard one off to the side shatter but he attention was at the one in front of her. He seemed to be taking on six players and winning, not only that but he was deflect the supports shots to. Asuna watched his sword cleave through shield and a couple of weapons, breaking them all. She would have expected the boss to be overwhelm but he was pushing the players back.

Asuna heard a familiar shatter behind her and she knew that the one in front of her was the only one left. She weaved through the players until she was in the inner circle around the boss. But she didn't stay there for long as she immediately confronted the boss. Their swords only connect once and Asuna realized why the boss was so strong. It was ever so slightly faster than he and quite a bit stronger than her. This made one idea click in Asuna's mind, there was no why anyone could much it's strength, it was far to strong for that.

But Asuna didn't even have time to test to see if she could as the boss knocked her back rather flawless. Using his left hand, the boss slapped Asuna across the face with enough strength to knock her back into the crowd and onto the ground. While she was only the ground, Asuna saw on arrow in the air, far above all of the players. It started to curve down until it finally was directly over the boss. The struck the boss right through the top of it's head and came out the other side.

The boss shattered instantaneously and their was feeble cheering to be heard. Asuna waited on the ground for a couple seconds to regain her energy then push off it. She looked around to see a whole bunch of players congregating around Sinon. A smile etched across her face. Maybe Storm of Centuries needed to be in every battle, Asuna didn't want to face something like that without them.

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In response to the most recent review, Kirito will stop being a loner after he rejoins the front lines, this will be right before a big event!

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter!

Next chapter will be up in a few

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	129. Envisage

July 10, 2023

-Sinon, Asuna, Diavel, Klein, Lynd, Heathcliff, Ran, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Godfree-

Keeping her hands tightly on the handle of her xiphos, Tsubaki examined the boss with great interest. This one intrigued her to more than she could have ever a boss to do so. They were all the way up to floor thirty nine and the one thing standing between them and the next ten floors was this one enemy. Or two, depends on how you look at it. Tsubaki prefered to look at as one entity.

Ran however, did have a different view from her own as she looked at them as two separate enemies. During their talks before the boss battle Ran thought it best to separate the two mobs from each, so that they were easier to take out. This did have a fair amount of reasoning to it and Tsubaki had to talk Ran out of it with a lot more effort than what it was worth. But with enough persistence you able to overcome almost every boundary and Tsubaki convinced Ran of a different plan.

They knew this boss, quite well in fact since this was not their first encounter with the boss. In fact it wasn't even the second, it was the third time they had seen this boss and the first time they had seen it in thirteen floors. Volrath and his dragon were back and a lot stronger and harder than last time. The last two times they had faced Volrath he had a more passive approach to his way of fighting, but this time he was upfront and personal.

More than once Tsubaki had to dive out of it's line of path as it practically decimated it. When she was younger she had asked her mother on multiple occasions to read her stories, practically ones with dragons in them. Volrath's pet here was the first one who matched up to what Tsubaki had heard in her younger years. The dragons would decimate the countryside, leaving nothing in it's tracks, not even an inkling of what used to be would remain. Tsubaki could have only imagined what the sight of this would be.  
But in all of those stories there would be hero, arriving just in the nick of time to save the village or princess, it was of no consolation to Tsubaki. In the boss room there was nothing to save but their ones lives, so how would put their life at stake and face the boss. There was no way Tsubaki would without someone or something pushing her into a situation to do so, as to be honest she valued her sight more than anything.

All of her help that she had gave to the players before the boss fight was now used up as they had already passed the halfway point. This didn't mean Tsubaki time was over, it meant quite the contrary as this was the most important part in her job description. Now her and Ran would have to figure out a weakness and how to exploit it. While also managing not to be the dragon's next meal.

The dragon came at her and the group of players around her, but she knew that the dragon's eyes were focused on herself as she liked to think that it was holding a grudge but its reasoning did not matter, all that mattered was that she need to get out of the way before she was turned marshmallow. Quickly and swiftfully, Tsubaki broken into a roll then sprung up to avoid any attacks the dragon made on precision but this did not go to well as the left sleeve of her shirt caught fire.

There was a tiny bit of saving grace to this however, now she had a reason to buy some new clothes, something that Ran had been holding off for far too long. Once she was far enough away from the dragon Tsubaki started to try to take some preventive measures. Though she would like the fire to burn a decent bit of her clothing, she did want to be burnt along with it and she wanted to remain modest. But of course there was some difficulty with the task at hand, since well nothing was easy for her. After a lot more time than she would like to admit she heard a male voice calling from over head.

"Stop, Drop and Roll." The voice was Klein's but his suggestion went right through Tsubaki's forehead bounced around a bit and exited the other side. She had never heard of what Klein had just said. Hoping that he had another suggest, she looked up in confusion at Klein. "Just rip it off." Klein stated. After mouthing the word thank you, no sounds could really be heard above the terror that is a dragon, Tsubaki ripped off her left sleeve.

She officially felt stupid now. It's funny how she could do things that no one could, not even Ran could do but when it came to simple things such as that she had absolutely no clue how to do it. Her thoughts were instantly quelled when she realised something. Whether or not it was true, she would have to test but she was fairly certain burnt clothes would at least hold some temperature. Reading her sword for departure, Tsubaki looked up towards the boss. Then without thinking, Tsubaki threw her rare xiphos directly at the boss.

The one thing that Tsubaki thought of highly was perseverance. If you fail the first time, come back a strike harder the second, and soon and so forth. But this trait would not be needed today as the dragon and by extension, Volrath did exactly as she had wanted. The sword was never meant to hit the dragon, on the contrary it was meant to miss it and miss it hard. And that it did but of course the dragon wanted to take precautions as any sane entity would do. The dragon shot a torrent of fire at her sword and as expected, Tsubaki's xiphos came out of the fire and loud on the ground with quite a lot of clangs, maybe a little to many.

Tsubaki flew towards her sword, literally or metaphorically, it did not matter to her she just had to touch her sword as fast as possible. Gripping her sword, Tsubaki felt what she had expected. Although having no prior experience with touching anything burnt or with fire, both her ripped piece of clothes and her sword felt really cold compared to what she had thought it would be. She knew one thing that they could exploit now.

"Hey, fire does emit heat, it's not as dangerous as we thought it was, tell everyone okay." Tsubaki stated to the nearest player. She probably had never talked to the player before and would probably never talk to him after, but Tsubaki trusted him enough to deliver the information the rest of the players. Now that she had that off her chest she was going to use it to the best of her ability.

She was about to put herself in danger and felt strangely okay about it. Tsubaki had a renewed confidence in herself, not that she needed it of course, but it's good to be reminded very once in awhile. Reading her sword she study the enemy for a while. Though most of it's attacks had been change at the halfway point, that didn't mean that it's movement had. Tsubaki knew practically everything about the boss before it change so at least some of this information would come in handy now.

Gripping her right sleeve, she ripped it off as it was annoying her. She didn't give this a second thought as immediately afterwards she started to sprint at the boss. It was acting as though it was about to dive at the players and she would be there when it did, and thankfully she was correct. The boss dived at the players and used its claws and mouth to disperse the congregation that was likely a result of her information. Using her xiphos, Tsubaki attached herself to the boss's thick hide and as suspected the boss had notice. Though she did not predict the boss's next movement.

The boss rammed straight into the ceiling, almost knocking her off. If she had a long sword or something of similarly manner she would have but thankfully her sword does have varying width to keep it inside the boss's hide. Once the boss retracted itself from the ceiling, Tsubaki rolled onto its back and found the boss she had killed two times before. He looked much less human than before, scales had erupted across his body and both of his hands were now claws.

"You again!" Volrath snarled. Tsubaki payed him no heed and readied her weapon. Like his dragon, Volrath attack without hesitation and thinking, practically the opposite of how she fought. This however, wasn't a detriment to Tsubaki, in fact it made what she had to do faster. She needed to find a pattern and exploit it and if the boss was attack as fast as possible then she could find it fairly easily.

After what felt like hours but in reality it was barely a minute, Tsubaki had found a pattern. This was not of course without certain cost, as her left hurt like no other, as the boss had scrapped it twice. Tsubaki jumped into the air and spun to create a fast but inaccurate kick that Tsubaki knew would make it's mark. This would serve to break the boss movements and make it restart from the beginning. Taking this advantage, Tsubaki countered the boss initial attack then produced a short linear barely cut the boss's cheek.

This would enrage the boss which would serve to do basically nothing. Tsubaki knew all of the bosses movements and she took a couple steps backwards. The boss ran at her and she just simply anticipated where he would step and she attack there before his leg even came in view. Right as his foot stepped firmly on the boss's hide, Tsubaki's blade cut off the leg, which made him crippled. Not even taking a second to bask in her winnings, Tsubaki brandish her xiphos and plunged it straight into the boss's head, killing him instantly.

Before the blue shards had disappeared Tsubaki jumped off the boss and landed softly on the ground. She disregarded the last attack bonus and merged herself with the crowd of applause and gratification.

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Hello again, I hope you enjoyed this chapter

I'm going on spring break so the next two Sundays I will not be able to upload but you got those chapters early!

Next chapters will be up in three Sundays from now

To everyone who's on spring break, Have fun!

To everyone who's not have another great day

-Kirk


	130. Attempt

July 12, 2023

-Ran and Tsubaki-

"Ready?" Ran asked Tsubaki as she readied her sword once more. They had been dueling all day now, maybe for the last couple of hours or so. This is what they did when they weren't leveling or helping out the front lines. But that isn't to say that they did this often, no, it was more of a once a month thing not a once a week thing. Tsubaki enjoyed this none the less as she couldn't tell you a time in the real world where she felt more alive.

"Like you even need to ask." Tsubaki said as she too readied her sword. Now they were at a stand still. Both of their ways of fighting were reactionary, at least for the first bit. Tsubaki's was meant to counter adjust to everything thrown at her, while slowly gain the knowledge to swiftly a quickly dispatch her opponent. Her style of fighting helped her out greatly when facing opponents with flaws, particularly bosses as most did have flaws. Players on the other hand are a lot better at hiding their flaws, and Ran was one of the best.

The only flaw that was apparent to Tsubaki was that like herself Ran did not want to start the duel either. This flaw helped Tsubaki know that, Ran was an incredible duelist and that Tsubaki couldn't use her regular tactics. Like Tsubaki, Ran's style of fight evolved during the fight to but instead of countering the opposing player, Ran simply added their attacks to her arsenal. This was in fact extremely dangerous as Ran wouldn't know all the flaws unless she had already executed that certain attack. However, Ran was fairly component at not overextending herself, and this made it easier for her to not make a simple mistake.

Taking all of this into account, Tsubaki decided to attack first. Usually Ran attacked first but Tsubaki wasn't foreign to the idea. All Tsubaki needed to do was to get the duel start without putting herself in much danger. Grasping her sword with both of her hands as to steady it, Tsubaki readied herself to go into a linear. Ran sword was a short sword and though it could handle almost every type of attack, it was not suited to be a rapier unlike her sword.

Tsubaki launched herself forward. If there was one thing she had learned from the Lightning Flash Asuna, was that speed is the most important part of a rapier style attack. Tsubaki pushed herself off with her left foot and sprinted towards Ran. This didn't take much of her energy as she was only like ten meters away from her. Once she was within striking distance,Tsubaki attack Ran with a lateral.

As expected Ran easily hit the lateral off it's course and launched her her attack, the every same lateral. With two quick swings of her sword, Tsubaki stopped the speed of the attack the sent what was left of it off course. She transitioned seamlessly into an upwards vertical. This strike would have cut across Ran's left shoulder but Ran stopped. Ran place both of her hands on her sword, her right on the handle and the left on the blade. This acted as a shield of sorts but it wouldn't have been as effective in other scenarios.

Dispatching her hand from the blade of her sword as quickly as she could, Ran attack Tsubaki with another linear. Tsubaki had concluded that Ran had figured out that it was much easier to attack with a linear rather than her widespread vertical. Using the same counter as last time, Tsubaki easily knocked her friends sword up and off it's tracks but she wasn't done there. The momentum of her upwards vertical caused her sword to go above her head and once it was Tsubaki grasped her xiphos with both of her hands and pushed downwards hard.

It was momentum like she had never felt it before, even faster than her first linear of the battle. This of course forced Ran into not the best of situations as she was not yet in a position to block such a strong attack. She would have to settle for something less than adequate and that she did. Tsubaki would have to commend her after the battle for her quick thinking as Tsubaki doubted that she could even come up with anything like what she did.

Tsubaki simply would have used her sword to soak up most of the impact and be prepared to be knocked back a couple of feet. While Ran did both of these things she also added in another one that pretty much made it so that the preparation was mostly unneeded. Ran punched Tsubaki in the stomach which Tsubaki had to admit her more than she would have expected. This had to results other than the pain echoing throughout her midsection.

The first was that the distance of her attack was reduced by a little bit. This in almost every other scenario would have been easy to overcome but alas her sword would say otherwise. Though she prided herself that she found a sword that fit her needs incredibly well it did have one down side. Being a leaf blade it was particular short which, if used correctly rarely came as a disadvantage. This was one of the first types it had done so.

Ran had said her sword looked a sword that she had her twin had scene in an order american movie but Tsubaki had watched. Though there was one comment from Ran that did make her chuckle, the sword in the movie was given to a particularly short person since it would function as a regular sword for him.

Secondly was that it slowed down her attack drastically. This was even more of a detriment since her sword, being small as it was needed all of the moment it could get as the ended of her blade would move slowly than the end of a long sword. This combined with the retraction of length made her attack a lot less lethal and made it so that Ran could counter it easily with her sword. Ran used the upwards vertical that Tsubaki had just used but instead of having to go into the hard downwards vertical, she hit the game data that was Tsubaki.

"That one hurt." Tsubaki said as clutched her stomach. They had been dueling all day and that defeat had hurt by far the most. Tsubaki had lost track of how many duels they had already but she knew that Ran was not only beating her by two. "That's no fair, you never said we could use our hands." Tsubaki winned as she fake pouted.

"And we use both of heads a lot too, should we put that in the rulebook?" Ran retorted with a gleeful look on her face. "Now you have to show me what you got from boss." Ran stated excitedly. Tsubaki had promised her that if she had won two in a row that she would show her and after a couple of hours and much perseverance she had done so.

"Well, I haven't looked at it yet either, could you tell me what it is?" Tsubaki asked as she opened up her menu. She clicked the top option, which if Tsubaki had to guess was the notifications and three of them popped up. Opening up a trade menu with Ran she sent all three of the last attack bonus she had gotten over the course of the game.

Ran looked at them for a moment then looked back at Tsubaki. "You have three of the four parts of Volrath's egg." Ran stated.

"What does that mean?" Tsubaki asked now intrigued, maybe she should have asked Ran to read them earlier.

"Well, if I am to be mistaken it means that if you get the last one you'll give birth to Volrath's child." Ran stated with a smirk on her face "Told you were going to a mother first."

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And I'm back

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next one will be out in a little bit

Have a wonderful week

-Kirk


	131. Annoyance

July 14, 2023

-Ran and Tsubaki-

Tsubaki spins on her foot as though she was a ballerina. However, she didn't really know if it was anywhere as graceful as a ballerina as she had never seen nor could see her attempt through a better pair of eyes. Though she was almost certain that it wouldn't be considered graceful as at the end off it she was seriously off balanced. In order to keep herself from falling on the ground in the middle of the store, Tsubaki had grab Ran's arm to steady herself.

"Let's not do that again." Ran stated with a lightness to her voice. Tsubaki giggled and acquiescence this notion. Straightening her back, Tsubaki ran both of her hands through her pink hair, or at least that was the color Ran said it was currently. It was also the cloth that the people would call her by as no one really knew her all that well much less her name. Ran constantly said it was a different color every time Tsubaki asked her.

"I've never done that before." Tsubaki said with a huge smile across her face. Just off of a couple of seconds of looking at Ran, Tsubaki could tell she was giving a look, as if to say she knew that already. "Shut up and let me be happy." Tsubaki stated nonchalantly as she walked over to a different asle. Ran flipped her hair back in protest and followed Tsubaki with her left hand passing through the rack of clothes that separated them

"Who knew you were the kind of girl to spend four hours in a clothing shop." Ran stated as she took a interest on one of the outfits on the rack. It looked a lot more like something she would wear as Tsubaki usually wore a lot more formal clothes than Ran. This outfit was more suited for herself and she liked that. She may have been at the store to help out Tsubaki, but that didn't mean she heed to everything that she said.

It was a dress and more than that it was a purple dress. While pink was more of Tsubaki's color, Ran choose to wear purple as no matter what Tsubaki thinks, pink and purple don't go together. That and Tsubaki wouldn't ask her to borrow some of her clothes. Though she liked Tsubaki, she didn't like Tsubaki that much. There was some boundaries that she had and one that was a lot closer than it should be was her ability to share.

Sharing was hard for her as she had done it her whole entire life and she wasn't like her sister. Her sister just got used to it and embraced, in fact she probably shared enough for the both of them. Like her sister, Ran was used but she didn't embrace the act of doing it, she embraced the opposite. After spending her whole entire life sharing, she just didn't wanted to do it, it really didn't matter who either. Though there was one thing Ran would share with almost anybody, time.

"Who does this one look?" Tsubaki stated as she looked around the corner at Ran. One of Ran's least favorite colors was pink but perhaps she now had a reason other than she didn't like it. Tsubaki's usual outfits were if Ran had to describe, business casual. This however, was nowhere near that. The outfit Ran had on was what Ran would've expected a four year old to wear though yet again, Tsubaki was acting like a kid in a candy shop, now at least she looked the part.

The best thing Ran could describe it resembled was a school girl's outfit, but pink. Ran didn't spend much time at school and she knew Tsubaki had spent even less, though there was one thing Ran hoped Tsubaki had learned from school. No one in their right minds would wear that outfit. Ran had to hold back a full on laugh as soon as she saw Tsubaki because well she looked like a lollipop. "Do me one favor, stick to something that you know is good, not something you use to see my eyes widen in disappointment." Ran stated as she put back the dress she had in her hands.

"Come on, be happier, I brought you here to help me pick out clothes, not to be a fun nazi." Tsubaki stated as she walked into another aisle. Ran let out a sigh of exasperation and let her purple hair fall in front of her face. After about three or so seconds she used her left hand to pull back her hair as she she put a red headband to keep it in place. Ran walked over to the aisle that Tsubaki was in to find that, thankfully, she had changed out of the lollipop outfit and was now sporting something more like her.

Ran was prepared to make some witty remark at Tsubaki as she rounded the aisle but that all seemed pointless as in the few seconds that they had been separated, Tsubaki had taken her advice. Looking at Tsubaki, Ran could tell that she had taken a great deal of time picking out the outfit and probably just wore all the other ones for fun. That just seemed like to sort of antics Tsubaki would be getting up to, especially in this day and age.

Her first layer was a black button up shirt, much like the one of which she normally wore. The only reason Ran could tell it was new was because it had a certain gleam to it that would not be present if Ran had been wearing, especially if she had been wearing it in a boss battle. Over top of she had a white vest with green lines to accent it. Tsubaki's jacket, which was over all of it was the small colors as her vest. Tied around her neck was a pink tie, which replaced the blue tie that was there before.

To match her torso, Tsubaki had picked out a skirt that was basically the same colors that she had doned on the top. The top was white with a single lime green to add dimension and the underneath was black, if Ran had to speculate. Rather than leave her legs uncovered, she had chosen to put on black leggings. To top it all off she had a pair of earmuffs around her neck. This reminded Ran a little to much of the life they had lived before the game.

"I know this is what you had wanted to show since entering the shop." Ran stated as she chuckled slightly. She also had a smile cross her face. Though Tsubaki tried her hardest to be free flowing and easy, Ran knew that wasn't her nature to be so. No matter who much Tsubaki denied it, she always had a plan, and never did anything just for the simple act of doing it. For Tsubaki there was almost always a reason behind it. Much like herself Tsubaki had some boundaries, and Ran knew what they were. Unless you actually tried to push them, then it would be unlikely for someone to do so without nothing but if they just so happen to, Tsubaki would make it known to them.

"Hey, that wasn't every nice, I thought you here to help me pick out clothes, not criticize me for my choices." Tsubaki said, trying to act as though she was hurt. However, Ran knew all the signs of Tsubaki trying to fake emotions and this one was painfully obvious as probably intended to be. Tsubaki grasped her heart as though it was giving way and then gave Ran a glorious sight of pouty eyes.

"Don't try to make me feel sorry, because you know that won't work, even my own sister couldn't, much less you." Ran stated. Tsubaki let out a sigh of defeat then stretched. "Can we get going, or is my job not done yet?" Ran asked, looking intently at Tsubaki. Knowing Tsubaki she would try to keep her here for even longer using any means necessary. Well apart from murder, No friends of Ran were murderers.

"You know the job is never done." Tsubaki stated acting as though she didn't care what happened next. Taking this to mean that she could leave, Ran put back the clothes that she had in her hands, and body the went for the door but was stopped by Tsubaki just mere steps away from it. "Did you really think that you could get away that easily, come on, I'm hungry know any good places to eat." Tsubaki asked Ran with a grin across her face .

Not even taking a second to contemplate her next actions, Ran shoved her hand forward at Tsubaki, which made a soft impact on her chest. Using this distraction, Ran turned on her heels and quickly exited the shop without another word.

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Hope you all enjoyed this chapter  
Thank you for all of your support

Next chapters will be out in a week

Have a magnificent day

-Kirk


	132. Apart

July 16, 2023

-Ran and Tsubaki-

Sometimes Tsubaki felt as literally everyone in Aincrad had insomnia as the night time were just as active as the day time. No matter what time of day it be, whether it be the dead of night or during the dinnertime rush hour, there was always a decent amount of players in the dungeons grinding. Tsubaki figured that this was just something that happen in the front lines since she couldn't imagine a player with barely an levels to be awake on floor one to grind.

"Why are we up at this time?" Ran yawned. This of course applied to everyone but her one and only friend, Ran. During their days in the real world they had a constant string of sleepless nights, along with her sister of course. It seemed as though that aspect of her didn't transfer over into the game, Ran actually enjoyed a good sleep. Tsubaki, like a normal fifteen year old gamer did not sleep at all, though, it's not like it ever made a difference to her in the real world whether she was awake or not.

"Hey you said you would help me out whenever I needed it." Tsubaki stated as readied her sword. Without even facing it before she knew what the enemy in front of her was doing, it was going in for a large lateral, one that could be easily countered. Tsubaki used her own lateral to knock the enemy's sword of course then transition her strike seamlessly into a downwards vertically. The mob died before it even knew what hit him and Tsubaki didn't even take time to see what it had left her with.

"I thought that had limits though, you can't wake someone up in the middle of the night and expect them to be all willie nillie." Ran said, this time with some more umph to her words. Tsubaki could actually her all the words this time, rather than piece together the couple of words that she had heard last time. It seemed as though Ran was actually starting to wake up. This puzzled her slightly as Ran was never the one to take forever to get up.

In fact the role was hers and hers alone. No matter what, even if she had an obscene amount of sleep before hand it always seemed as though she was the one to be woken up. In the early days of their friendship, Tsubaki had found how the woke her up to be quite jarring but then she had mature a lot faster than most at her age. This was probably as result of her surroundings as when your stuck around your parents and a bunch of professions you tend to mature rather quickly.

Through almost all of her life Tsubaki had only had two friends, at least that she could actually remember. She may have had even or two 'friends' from when she was really young but it was hard to call them as such since she didn't have a face to connect them to. Though this could be said for the twins Tsubaki didn't think of them as such. Unlike all the others, Tsubaki actually got to meet them and experience adventures with them, without the confines of parents to hold them down.

"Yeah, well it was my request and I can twist however I like." Tsubaki stated with a certain pop to her voice. Once she finished speaking, Tsubaki brandished her sword as if to say, try me. Upon the instant of seeing this Ran didn't stand down even for a second. This action made Ran going into several of her own. First was the obvious eye roll as most thirteen year old girls would do. Second was a look of pure amusement and disappointment meant. Tsubaki guessed that Ran was trying to communicate that she could take her down without even trying.

However Tsubaki didn't have to go after the assumption as Ran's next actions were pretty clear. Finally, Ran brandished her sword and pointed it towards Tsubaki. If words had came out of her mouth in the next moments, Tsubaki knew what they would be. Grinning as if she had predicted this, Tsubaki quickly readied her sword and swung it at Ran, using her trademarked downwards lateral.

They had fought against each other far too many times for something as simple as that to catch Ran off guard. Tsubaki knew this but in order to have a duel they had to start somewhere. As suspected Ran made a large arc over her head to deflect Tsubaki's sword. This resulted in quite a loud clang against swords. Tsubaki jumped back to disengage herself from Ran, she knew that Ran was going to try to position seamlessly into an attack. If there was something that Ran was really good at, it was that.

"Come on, you scared." Ran taunted as her attacked completely missed Tsubaki. They were about evenly matched, but if Tsubaki had to say if one of them was stronger it was Ran. But with that said it didn't make the duel any easier as their difference in skill was next to nothing. There is one thing that are both really good at. They're both extremely smart in the art of dueling, particularly against each other and they both knew that their words were just as important as the sound of their swords.

"Not scared, just smart." Tsubaki stated with a large grin across her face. Though taunting was just as important was a rebuttal, Tsubaki personally got a lot more joy from a witty remark, at least for her standards. Once again Tsubaki readied her xiphos but this time she was in between two ideas of ways to attack. They were two completely different ideas, to different paths to take, which one would she take?

Brandishing her sword one more time, Tsubaki took off in a sprint at Ran. She readied her sword right by her head with her other hand outstretched towards Ran. Ran made a large horizontal that completely stopped her advance. Of course this only took Tsubaki off course, and Tsubaki had already assumed that something like that would happen and plan accordingly. Her plan was to confuse Ran to the best of her abilities.

This was hard to make it seem as though it could be unpredictable as Tsubaki took a lot of time to formulate it and no doubt that Ran already had the necessary counters in place for the majority of her attacks. For Tsubaki this was hard, she hated doing things that were unpredictable as she often applied a certain subtext to this word. If it was unpredictable than it was either not meant to done or extremely stupid. But when face a dueling genius such as Ran it is hard to beat her at her own game. Sometimes you just had to be dumb to beat the geniuses

Tsubaki jumped back, completely avoiding Ran's blade but immediately upon landing, she repositioned her body's weight forward. This wasn't the usual defensive maneuver, this was an offensive distraction, an attempt to leave Ran wide open for the next attack. Once she was on both feet, Tsubaki used the weight of her body and the thrust of her arm to push her sword forward. As she did this she took a step forward with her right but unlike the steps usually meant for guidance, this one was meant to propel her forward.

Though she had already distracted Ran, Tsubaki doubted that to be enough as one was barely enough for any twin. Tsubaki's flying xiphos, while going pretty fast was merely a distraction from the real offensive attack, her body. As expected Ran used a short range, but taxing move to knock her sword hard. This left Ran completely open for the unarmed attack that Tsubaki was about to pull off. Tsubaki lunged for Ran's midsection and tackled her.

"Ouch, that one hurt." Ran said with quite a lot of emphasis on the ouch. Tsubaki, grinning rolled off her tackled companion and onto the cold hard dungeon ground. With her hands, Tsubaki found her sword on the ground and lifted it up towards the sky with her left hand. This was an amazing sight, one that she would have never thought up. "Yuuki would have loved this." Ran stated with her voice completely calmed down and now at a point of clarity.

"Yeah she would." Tsubaki said with just a hint of sadness, she would do anything to see her, even if a carbon copy of her was laying right next to her. "What do you think she is doing right now, I would like to think that she is off having her own adventure." Tsubaki asked as she grasped her sword with both hands now.

"I don't now, I hope she got out of that place though, maybe she finally went back to school, remember her telling us that she would do anything to just go back to school and be a normal kid?" Ran stated. Tsubaki didn't even need to look over to she if she had a smile on her face, she knew that Ran did. "It's funny how most kids would pay anything never to go back to school again while she would pay anything just for another day in school." Ran said.

"I can tell you what she's thinking right now… she wants to be in the game with us, even if it is truly a life and death situation. Most people would do anything to get out of the game, hell they even kill themselves to do it but for Yuuki, it's killing her not to be in the game, with us."

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Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Sorry for the later upload

Next chapter will be up in a few

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	133. Assist

July 20, 2023

-Ran and Zack-

"Found you." Ran stated as she grabbed Zack's arm and tried to turn him around with her left hand. Zack merely yanked his left arm forward and kept walking, he didn't want to to talk to people, and the teenager was no exception. In fact if he went his whole life without ever hearing another human's voice again he wouldn't mind it all that much. It wasn't that he hated humans in general it's that that out of all the people he knew none of them seemed to care about him. The one exception was behind him and she didn't even know his real name.

"You can only find something that has been lost." Zack stated with ill will. No one would try to find him, there was no way he would make a lasting impact on someone's life for them to search him out. Then yet again this was the second time this teenager who he had no connection with had went out of her way to find him. Zack clenched his fist in contemplation, he didn't want to talk her and yet he felt obliged to at least acknowledge her existence. After all it had been a long time since someone had at least tried for him.

Zack felt the warmth of her hand leave his arm with regret. Helping someone who didn't want to be helped was not something that she was going to do, though Zack could tell that she wanted to help out. This made it so he was conflicted between two decisions, whether or not to turn around and talk to the girl. On one hand it had been a long time since he had human interaction of any notable significance. However on the other he had to talk to this girl who may or may not make him feel incredibly awful about himself.

The choice was not a hard one to make as he knew what the right thing to do was. He had to talk to her and stop being his usual selfish little self. That was probably the reason why he couldn't keep anyone around him recently. Though to be fair he could sufficiently blame a lot of things on that and not be wrong. Nor would it be siphoning off the blame as frankly he couldn't help that he wasn't close to his parents since he literally is in a different world. But he would need to gather up the courage to face the others when the time comes and this was the first step in many.

Zack turned around to face the girl. She looked a lot older than when he had last seen her, or rather she looked as though she composed herself differently. Not to say he was an expert on the matter but over the last couple of years he had seen some drastic changes in himself and he could tell that even though he didn't look older, he seemed as though he was. The main aspect of that was the eyes and from what he could tell she had seen some things.

They looked at each other for a couple of moments before Zack finally had the urge to attempt to try to speak up. This was of course after he could tell that Ran had already forgone the attempt to make a snarky comment though he was almost sure it had crossed her mind. In an attempt to get her back he thought up of a joke but since he only had a couple of moments the joke was somewhat cruel. "What was your name again?" Zack asked with just an inkling of a smile across his face.

This made Ran done a face of pure anger and before Zack could tell her that it was a joke that he actually knew her knew, she had backhanded him across the face. With surprising force, Zack might add as he could have never imagined a thirteen year old do as such. Zack managed to sneak a quick pic at her face he could tell that she wasn't even going to attempt to think about hiding her anger. "I was kidding, your name's Ran." Zack stated as stretched his face to try to separate the stinging. "Man you hit hard." Zack exclaimed once he was finale done calming the stinging.

"Next time think before you speak then." Ran stated with a grin that told Zack one of two things. Either she was glad it hurt as much as it did or she was glad that all her efforts weren't in vain. Zack comprised on a combination between the two. At least he hoped it wasn't completely her being happy that her slap hurt like hell. From the couple of days they had spent together a while back Zack would have liked to think that she was at least helpful and caring not some who liked to see him in pain.

"What did you want me for?" Zack asked as he took a tiny step back. The only way that Ran would have noticed was if she was looking at his legs and from what he could tell she hadn't been. Ran showed no facial expression towards the move he had just made. Zack expected her to grab his arm again and to give himself a little more leeway he wanted distance between him and the girl. Though human interaction was something that he could tell that he needed, he still wasn't one to want it.

"I want to help you." Ran stated sincerely. This made Zack want to do a lot of things. First to mind was a snarky comment as that was his nature but after what his face felt he was swayed from doing that. The second one almost came out immediately after and he had to physically stop himself from doing so which, thankfully he did because that would've also probably gotten him slapped. Zack's second reaction was to burst out laughing and to stop himself he bit his tongue, rather hard introspect.

The third thing that this sentence made him wanted to do was probably the most sane and the one least likely to get him slapped. After all that was pretty much the route he was taking since his face still stung quite a bit. If he was with his brother than he would have nine times out of ten said a snarky comment and the tenth time would have been a laugh but he didn't know this girl that well. And that was exactly was he was going to attempt to play off of. "No offense but we don't really know each other." Zack stated trying not to sound like he was accusing her of something.

"I would like to get to know you, I think that is the best way to help you out." Ran stated as she bowed her head ever so slightly. Zack could feel that he wanted to, now seemed to want to get to know and the people that already did wanted nothing to do with him. And yet even Ran was offering quite possibly one of the only things he wanted in life right now there was no way in hell he would ever tie her to the facts of his life, he didn't care how much it hurt him or her.

"No, I must… refuse." Zack said slowly and painfully. He tried to hide this distress rather than show it to Ran outright, if she really wanted to get to know him then she would have to read between the lines. "I can't bare to burden you on my life, you should go off to the front lines, your service up there is much more valuable than anything that has to do with me." Zack stated with even an inkling of longing.

"You don't know that, no life is worthless." Ran stated as she tried to grab his arm once more. Zack easily stepped back to avoid her and he tried to burst into laughter. Anyone who had known him in the real world would know that, he was more of a liability than anything. Most people couldn't get over this fact and the only ones who could was his family. But even then some of them didn't talk to him because they knew what he was and well the only people who were really good to him were now gone and there was nothing he could do about.

"I sorry but you're wrong. Don't think that just because you have experienced loss you can predict that I want help. I am not even worth a single yen and you can't change my opinion on that. I don't even know why I am still alive." Zack stated, going off on Ran. This was probably way to big of a reaction but it would end this conversation and Ran would most likely never say anything to him again, and that is how it should be.

"Then why are you still alive?" This was said under her breath and was most likely said so that he wouldn't hear. She probably said this by accident, her mouth thinking before her mind did probably but nevertheless Zack heard it and it took him aback. There was so many people that had killed themselves in the game, why wasn't he one of them? If his life was completely useless then why was he still alive, why didn't he end his life the day the game started? Maybe then his brother wouldn't have hated him.

"Because I'm unlucky."

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Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Thanks for all of your support on this fanfic, it means alot

Next chapters will be up in a week

Have a great day

-Kirk


	134. Access

July 25, 2023

-Zaza and Zack-

"You will join us." Zaza stated with a snarl. Zack knew that he wasn't the best at handling peer pressure and well if anything was the judge of that, it was Zaza. One character trait that Zack did not have was perseverance and it seemed as though Zaza had it in spades. Or at least he did a hell of a job faking. The only other person who had been this annoying to him was Ran and at least she was trying to urge to do something good but not Zaza.

"You have tried to persuade me multiple times Zaza, what do you think will change my stance now?" Zack asked. It didn't matter how they went about doing it or what they would give him, nothing could turn him into a serial killer. And he had told them this countless times before and yet they are back again to try to recruit him. He may be a loner but that didn't mean he would join them, if anything he would join then take them out from the inside.

"We've gotten knew information on you would you like to hear it?" Zaza ask rhetorically. Zack would never answer this question and Zaza knew it if the grin on his face was any indication. "So as it turns out you have a brother in the game, do you not?" Zaza laughed after this statement. "I wonder what came between you two, sibling rivalry, no that can't be it, what was it, do tell." Zaza said with a snarl. Zack knew his approach, mocking him and well it was working well.

Zack didn't have a lot of restraint as he really never had to use it. Either he was the one instigating the fight or his brother was faster than him at getting involved. He was more of the reasonable one, his brother that was until the game. Zack could understand why he had change as if he had lost what Kazuma had he would've reacted the same way. But now that he was in the game his lack of restraint really showed as he had already gone orange four times and one more time it would be permanently orange.

Though Zack feared this it never was in the forefront of his mind, what was usually in the forefront of his mind was the situation at had. Two of the other four times he had been trying to persuade Kazuma and well that didn't go over to well. In retrospect he probably could have done about it better as he kind of came across as an insane psychopath or whatever the killing version of that was. Without even think about the consequences, Zack flipped his spear out from his back and toward Zaza's neck only to stop just a mere centimeter away from the skin of Zaza.

"Come on, you know you want to be a red player don't you, just one more strike just a little closer." Zaza mocked him. He grabbed the sharpened end of Zack's spear, the one closest to his neck and pulled it closer to his neck, to the point at which it was touching his neck. "Come on I know you have it in you, you've killed before, what makes me so different. Zaza snarled. Every ounce of Zack reasoning was slowly trickling out of him. It seemed as though everything was going as Zaza had planned it to.

"NO!" Zack screamed as he yanked his spear backwards and out of Zaza's hold. This took the last bit of common sense left in Zack and even then it was hard from him to do so. He could just imagine the end of his spear sinking into the killers flesh and turning it red. This enthralled Zack way more than it should have, maybe all of the others players were right maybe he was destined to be a killer. But he couldn't give up now not when he still had a tiny chance at redemption.

There was very little keeping him from turning him and his will was one of the last fighting forces keeping him away from that path. But no matter how much he fought it all seemed to be for nothing, soon enough he would fail and the good fight would be over. Now it was a matter of where and when. However, there was one other thing that made him continue to fight. One of the few things that kept him alive in the real world was his brother had if he even had the slimmest chance at redemption he would take it. No matter the cost.

"Come on what's stopping you, nothing but your own will and I can tell right now that your will is fading. You will fall it depends what will happen afterwards, will I be there to catch your or stab you." Zaza stated as he grabbed Zack's Spear once again and placed it on his neck and let go. No matter how much Zack tried to retract his arm it seemed as though he wanted to do so. "Make your choice now, the only consequence of your actions here will be your relationship with Laughing Coffin. Come on do what you have been fearing." Zaza stated as he grabbed Zack's shoulder.

Without even thinking about it Zack attacked Zaza with his spear as soon as Zaza touched his shoulder. Zack retracted his spear from Zaza's neck and attempted to cleave Zaza's arm right of but failed as his spear didn't go through. It stopped about a third of the way through and Zaza broadcasted a devious grin. Zaza jumped back and away from Zack, with his spear head still wedged in his arm. This made horrible sounds as it ripped open Zaza's left arm, but this didn't do as much damage as it should have done. As Zack had expected Zaza's level was quite a bit higher than his own.

But there was something that Zack had forgotten about, a loophole through the player cursor. Attacking someone who is orange doesn't count as a penalty so in this case Zack was still safe as Zaza was probably one of the orangest players out there. This made Zack feel a little better but it still didn't make him feel great. He had promised himself he would never attack another player and he just did. Though the situation could've been labeled as defending himself, Zack knew that his mind would never do so.

Zaza pulled out his estoc and started to attack Zack, like he would do to any of his colleagues. With that said, Zaza attack viciously and held no restraint. Even towards other members Laughing Coffin showed no mercy whatsoever. Barely have time to react Zack held off Zaza for the time being with his spear. Zack knew that even if he was a prospective member, Zaza could kill him without any remorse, that was the way of a player killer.

And that right there was why Zack wasn't a player killer like the red eyed assassin in front of him. While as they showed no restraint and held no regret Zack held both of those qualities in spades. Even in the virtual world Zack had much to regret and even when the outcome seemed inevitable Zack fought on. Countless times during the game he had to restrain himself and that's what made him more sane than the person in front of him. He knew the results of his past and was afraid of facing them and yet he did so. Zaza was obviously running from something and his way of doing it was killing.

"Come on you've killed before, so why can't you kill me huh, try me, I promise won't haunt you from the grave haha." Zaza cruelly stated with disgust at Zack. He needed to show restraint, no matter how much he wanted to kill Zaza in this moment, Zack needed to back off. He will get another chance. A chance where he would be more likely to win. Zack wasn't the most proud of people was not a stranger to running away.

"No but one thing will, work for you." Zack stated as he started to attempt to break off from Zaza. During their short but engaging tussle Zack had been more than capable of throwing off Zaza. Zaza wasn't the strongest of players and Zack knew that his strength was taken directly from bloodlust and well he was not intend to be killed so the bloodlust was not as strong. Zack was lighter on his feet and faster than Red Eyed Zaza. With that said Zack maneuvered Zaza into a corner then threw his spear at him. The spear was a distraction and a good one. With the spear distracting Zaza, Zack quickly made his get away making sure to leave behind a smirk of annoying proportions to back at Zaza.

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Thank you all for reading this chapter!

Hope you all have been enjoying this fan-fic

Next chapter will be up in few

Have a great day

-Kirk


	135. Agenda

July 31, 2023

-Ran and Zack-

"Thank you for coming, I wanted to apologize to you for last time and well all the other times before that." Zack said as he looked down at his hands which were clasped around the usual cup. But the contents of the cup were different from what he had came to drink during the game. Though he did drink the like in real life this was usually reserved for times that he actually had a good amount of yen, or in actually terms about a thousand yen. The contents of his drink was tea.

Water wouldn't do, he had tried multiple times over the last couple of days to try and make water due but alas it was clear. His mind knew it was water and well didn't like. The water would just sit there building up condensation as Zack would ruminate about his current decision. Tea seemed to be just the right amount of concentration and color, as long as Zack didn't think about it too long then he would accident drink every once in awhile.

In truth with all the things on his mind, it wasn't hard to trick him into drinking some tea, especially as he exhausted himself ruminating about all the options he had. The fact was that he didn't have many options of what to do in the game. He had backed himself into a corner, the dead off an extremely long hallway, with the lights out. And right now all he was trying to do was find the switch or a candle, whichever worked best.

Currently he had the candle just right out of his each and he knew what he dead to do. He was taking the hardest option that he had available as he had always taken the easy road in life. The only job Zack ever got he quit after almost two days, so that meant he lived off of other people. His college education, which was so dearly paid for by his parents was basically all for nothing. Barely managing to get to the semester mark with be kicked out of school for, not exactly legal things, his grades were absolutely awful. To this day, Zack didn't know any of the classes he was taking nor did he know what building they were in much less the room.

Now that he was in the game and the events of his past life were hopeful not common knowledge to anyone other than his brother he could attempt a start at a second chance. All be told the start of the game did not go over well for him for several reasons, the least of switch being that his brother, the last member of his family that hadn't disowned him yet, did without even hesitating or regretting it.

"I know how much you like asking questions so as a gift of my apology, I present you with the ability to ask me any question and will answer one hundred percent truthfully." Zack stated without single hint of hesitation but oozing out without much emotion at all. It was as if it was rehearsed. In music as he learned in his early high school days practice makes perfect and not only that but it tended to ease the nerves when you went in for a concert or something. Only if he wouldn't have gotten lazy he may have actually had a good life.

"What is this really about?" Ran asked her first of presumably many questions and almost immediately made Zack second guess his words. He may have prepared for the introduction but he certainly didn't prepare for the rebuttal. Zack knew that if and when he answered that question truthfully he would be persuaded to do exactly what he had decided not to do. It didn't take a debate champion or a politician to change his views on anything, in fact he was pretty sure a toddler could do it if it tried hard enough.

"I won't answer that one… or any other answers like it." Zack added after he saw a mustigevious had appeared on Ran. There was no doubt in his mind that Ran couldn't easily persuade to tell him the truth and this slightly frightened Zack. He had to be prepared for what he was about to endure and if facing Ran's words meant practice then he would take it. But he couldn't do it, lying was the way of the past or at least that's the way he wanted it to be. "I about to do something extremely risky and I may not survive it." Zack divulged the truth to her. It may have been a little vague but any more and she would have tried to stop him.

Ran looked at him for a moment with a quizzical look. Any longer and Zack would have literally spill his life story right then and there but Ran thankfully spoke before he did. However, the words were not anything like what Zack would have thought to hear so early in the conversation. "What happen between you and your brother?" Ran asked. Zack knew this one was coming and didn't wanted to really answer it. But he had prepared for it and he wasn't sure if his answer would suffice for Ran.

Screwing up his face, Zack didn't know what to do. He knew what he should do that was obvious but he knew that no matter how much her tried to pick up that piece he could figure it out. It was as if it was in a time he was unfamiliar with, he just couldn't handle it. However, he couldn't not tell her the truth as he would have basically broken his oath twice now and well that isn't exactly what you want to happen when that person is your last hope.

"I would rather not speak about but I'll tell you one thing I'll never forget it, never." Zack said slowly and painfully with his tears almost breaking through his eyelids, but he held them back. Without even taking more than a couple of seconds to look at Ran he could tell that she was intrigued but would not push him. She could sense the pain that he was going through. "If you want to know the story talk to my brother, he can tell you a lot more about than I can, just ask him nicely he won't be able to reject you." Zack stated.

"Why?" Ran asked without even thinking, almost as if it was second nature.

Almost upon looking back at her his head shot down and he closed his eyes shut, almost as if he was Hiro Nakamura and was trying to stop time but alas that power was reserved to the gods. In Zack's mind he was much less than the gods he didn't know anything and he most certainly didn't deserve it. And that was why he would tell her why, maybe in a different life he would have been able to Ran about his missteps at the beginning of the game along with it but alas he was not the man he wanted to be. "You look like her." Zack stated short and to the point, there was an note of pain and emotion in those four words, but not more than she had come to expect.

"So what's your last name?" Ran asked. Zack looked up at her and she looked like a schoolgirl, he was quite surprised that she wasn't giggling to be honest but that was of no consequence. He would have to eternally thank her for what she had done for him since he had entered the game. It used to be only his brother and her that believe in him but now there was someone else, someone that could allow him to see the light of day

He vowed no matter what happen from then on he would never intentionally hurt her, not even if his life depended on it. The girl sitting across from him at the bar he had some beers and lost nights at was finally saving him from himself, his greatest enemy. But now he would have a new greatest enemy, by this time next week all of his ties would be broken and abolished and he would be ready for the path her had chosen. One that he had finally chosen himself.

"Date." Zack answered with a smile.

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Hope you all enjoyed this chapter!

Can you tell what Zack's about to do?

Next chapters will be up in a week

Have a wonderful week!

-Kirk


	136. Aisle

August 8, 2023

-Zaza and Zack-

"That's the target?" Zack asked as he readied his spear. He knew the answer but he needed to seem unprepared and nervous. This wasn't that hard as he was but it was for entirely different reasons. The target wouldn't be hard to take out he was sure of this but the harder enemy is the one standing right next to him. Subtly is the game, he could not be overzealous and seem strong and confident than the others.

"You know what to do." Zaza said. His voice was brisk and curt or maybe not, the usual air of his voice was slightly rude and harsh, especially towards him. No matter what he did he could not influence Zack, he wouldn't let him. This went against everything he had trained his mind to do over the course of his life and it frightened him. But he did make sure of one thing, if he died then not only did he literally not have a friend in the game, someone other than his brother could pass on his story.

Looking at his hands, Zack held his breath. In these moments of diverging paths he had to take a second to grasp what was happening. There was two possible outcomes that could come out of this event and one of them could possibly change the course of the game while the other would lead to nothing. The start would need a sacrifice a he was prepared to do it but it wasn't about him it was about the death of the player in front of him. His choice dictated which one of them would survive, it's selfish.

This path may lead to some catastrophic ramification as it could change Zack for forever, no it would change him no matter what happen. But it was a matter of would he become what Zaza wanted him to be, or would he defy a logic. He had to defy logic no matter he had to, because if he didn't he would become one of them. However, that wouldn't make what he was about to do any better.

Over the course of his life he had used other people for his personally gain and felt absolutely horrible about it. This was mainly to do of things with monetary value as well he never had a job. It include extortion(Or his failed attempt at it), begging, and stealing but most stealing. None of that compared to what he was about to do, nothing was more great than the physical act of killing someone and he knew this. No matter what the reason or excuse, there was no way to remove your morality. Either you were born with it or without it, only time would tell for Zack.

"Hark!" Zack shouted as he popped out of the forest he and Zaza were finding in. "Prepare to do by the hands of Laughing Coffin." Zack stated brandish his spear at the player. The player's eyes instantly shot open to their full capacity as he tried to comprehend what exactly was going on. Unlike what most players did, Zack did not use this opportunity to sneak attack the player. He knew what would catch Zaza's attention and he didn't like it but would play along with it.

Almost as if the player was acting upon pure instinct, he turned around and ran but unfortunately his class didn't help him all that much. In contrast to the light no armor build that Zack had the player in front of him had on a armor that nearly covered his entire body, with a shield and a sword. All in all, his weight was probably double Zack's if not triple, he was in no shape to run away from Zack.

Zack took off at the player, but with non intent to kill, not just yet, as he had done some research on Zaza he knew who to get on his good side, he needed to toy with this player first. "Come on face me like a man, face death with at least an impression of dignity." Zack snarled at the player, who to his credit manage to pay him no heed. But he would once he realized he wasn't anywhere close to be able to run away. Zack had made his voice quieter with a shout to it to make it so in his haste, the player would think he had more room.

Being a band kid, Zack knew how to show off and well he was going to do it right now. Zaza didn't need a carbon copy of himself he needed an apprentice with skills that Zaza could build upon. So all Zack had to show him was potential along with a murderous trait. Next he did something he thought could only be possible in his imagination. Once Zack was close enough, he jump and twisted till he was horizontal with the player's head, then he kicked the player hard with his left foot.

If Zack didn't know what the sound of his foot slamming into another man's head sounded likely, he did now, and even after he hit the ground with a loud thud, Zack could still hear it. MAN, that must of hurt, alot. But as memorable as that would be the was something more memorable to come of that engagement. Zack was finally after almost a year in the game of death, one of the many yellow players. But even more he was trying to gain entry to the few that call themselves the red players.

"I command you to stand up and face me like the man you are." Zack stated once he stood up from his semi-intentional fall. The player looked up at him as if to say just kill me now. Zack had a half a mid to do so as it would be a lot less painful if he had but that wouldn't make Zaza happy and that was the plan. After all there is no mercy in Laughing Coffin. But that also meant if he ever failed a mission he would be killed. There was too many variables in his plan, almost enough to make him want to stop but not yet, he would not stop until he was dead.

"How about you let me rephrase that, If you don't stand up and Fight, then I'll torture you until you go unconscious." Zack spat at the player. He was pretty sure is last threat could not be achieved as he was almost certain you couldn't go unconscious in the game but no matter, the player jumped up as fast as he arm could allow. His fist clench around his spear as he picked it up and slammed the blunt end into the hard ground. "Fight Me!" Zack yelled.

The player did exactly as he was commanded to but to no prevail. Both of his sword attacks were driven offsides by Zack's spinning spear. The player also tried to attack with his shield but Zack simply hit the player's left shoulder with the blunt end of his spear. He didn't need to kill him, not yet at least. The intentions were that Zack would do as much emotional damage to the player before he finally killed him, well that was what Zack thought Zaza wanted anyways. After a couple of attacks from the player he could tell he was losing the want to fight.

"Come on, put your back into magot!" Zack taunted the player once again. He finally got to the player as he lashed out and ran at Zack how easily dodge his attack and punched the player with his right fist, knocking him to the ground. Almost upon instinct Zack readied his spear at the player's face but he saw the player had given, he could tell just from the eyes. This wasn't enough he knew it wasn't enough for Zaza and hated it, he mouth the words I'm sorry to the player then spoke up before the player could respond.

"Take off your armor and leave it on the ground here, then run away, I won't kill you if you do that." Zack stated without an ounce of sincerity. If the player had been less frightened he may have noticed it but alas the player took of his armor laid it on the ground and bowed towards Zack. "Leave now I don't see your face every again!" Zack shouted. He ran, not that fast at first but faster and faster.

"Hey, you forgot something." Zack yelled to the player as he readied his spear. The player turn around, his face was obviously relieved as he wasn't going to die but he was wrong. Once he turned around he saw Zack's spear hurtling towards his face and had no time to react before it impaled him straight through the head, right in between the eyes. The hopeful childish face that he had on was wiped clean by the face of realization and doom.

XXXX

Thank you all for reading this chapter!

Thank you for all your support on this fan-fic

Next chapter will be up in a few

Have a great day

-Kirk


	137. Alter

August 15, 2023

-PoH, Zaza, Johnny Black, Zack-

It had been just over a week since he had joined and Johnny didn't know what to think of it. He saw a lot in himself in the new member but he could almost instantly tell that there was a stark difference between. Without even talking or hearing his voice he could tell that they would never be alike each other as there was no way that two people that look so different could be so similar, right?

Well maybe but he couldn't dwell on that right now as they were about to being an 'official' guild meeting. These meetings weren't ever really official as the guild they were in was never official, Johnny assumed that these meetings were meant to build camaraderie between all the members. With that said however, they did go over quite a lot during these meetings. It was mainly the two leaders, PoH and Zaza relaying their missions or killings to the greater group and for scouts like himself to relay the information of importance to the lesser members.

Johnny was currently sitting at a round table with at least twenty players at it, maybe more. The majority of them he had talked to before, albeit reluctantly but nevertheless the only he had not talked to was Zack. As far as Johnny knew he had been instated as an 'official' member of Laughing Coffin, he had the tattoo and everything. Though to be fair the tattoo didn't mean much as the tattoo was easily removable, Johnny had personally done it twice already.

But as much that was an interesting thought, the majority of Laughing Coffin didn't even have an inkling that they could be removed, much less effortlessly. Apart from being one of the first members, well of the surviving ones at least, Johnny was also one of the few scouts. He had arguably one of the hardest jobs in the so called guild. Being a bad guy and passing yourself as one of the good guys something that had to be delicately done.

Apart from assassinating the front line players, he had the job with the highest death rate. Johnny Black was one of few remaining members to have held the job. In fact he is the only male player to have last more than a month with this job and the only other player with the job currently was a girl. They didn't have much contact with each other anywhere, as they tried to pull information from different markets, though they would happen across each when dealing with Argo. If they had Argo they would no virtually everything in this virtual world but alas there was one thing that Argo didn't now, and that was them

The reason Johnny had taken of the mark was that during high risk information mission if he got caught he knew of the ramifications. As of right now all that is known of Laughing Coffin is that they are a mid level guild that terrorizes the lower floors. This is fair as the majority of their members do go down to the lower floors for 'fun', but almost all of their mission take place in the middle or high levels.

Johnny was not of these members who went down to the lowers floors as he tended to keep to himself, or gain knew assets in the higher of which he did without the uses of friends, or guild mates and something about Zack's eyes told him that he was every much the same. Zack had crystal blue eyes, most likely not from Japanese descent as his hair was also golden brown, almost blonde in a way. But passed all of that Johnny could see a lonely little boy.

To be fair the player in question, Zack was most likely older than him by at least a year maybe two. Looking into his eyes once again Johnny saw past the first facade and into the second one. This oozed out experience, Johnny had no doubt in his mind that Zack had already experience things he rather never think of again, and his cursor was proof of that. Orange as the sun and probably as red as it too. Those eyes were prepared to kill but Johnny had an inkling that it wasn't the primary objective.

No matter how much they looked like they weren't eyes like his he had seen them before, mostly in players outside of Laughing Coffin. But his eyes weren't the only ones in the room that were like this as another player appeared behind them, a girl dressed in complete black. In the few times he had been in the front lines he had heard of what seemed to be her description. A swordsman dress in only black with a longsword sheathed across his back. But there was a discrepancy to the tale as they player in front of him was certainly a female.

In truth, Johnny had never seen the player, nor had the vast majority of Laughing Coffin. Both of their leaders, PoH and Zaza had faced him and both times he ran away from them, but from what Johnny could tell, he was a worthy adversary. The one member that would speak about him spoke about in hushed and a fearful voice, he was certainly one of the strongest players in the game, or so he had been told. Johnny was in doubt of this fact, as he had personally seen both Tsubaki and Diavel fight, but he knew that the swordsman commanded respect just by his presence.

However unlike the other members of the so called 'guild' Johnny didn't really have an reservations about him other than the usual respect. Though he did have to be fair in saying that he also wished to never meet the player, his tales were enough. Both Tsubaki and Diavel had shown impressive skill and if he was anything like him he would be dead within the minute. The fact that he was any information specialist and not an assassin is what made it so he could sleep at night.

"Thank you all for meeting us here, we have some information we would like to share with you all." PoH said in his usual voice. This voice was not the voice of a leader but more likely the voice of a killer. It was reserved yet oddly deadly and had the air of interrupt me if you dare. Not even Zaza had interrupted him, they knew how vicious their leader could be. "We have lost two of our members on high rank missions unfortunately. One of the missions was completed however, so let's raise our glass to that." PoH stated as he picked up the glass that was meant for him by the top and took a drink out of it.

All of the other players follow in suit and with little noise. This was the way of their meetings, it was like sitting in a classroom trying not to be called on. In was quite the experience as Johnny had never felt anything like that. He had been fairly good at avoiding any of those situations in the real world but it was just something about all the other players that disfigured him. That was usually an afterthought though as Johnny really would rather not showing fear in front of his leaders. He wouldn't in the slightest be surprised if that action made him receive the death penalty.

"Now we have found two members to fill their seats at our table. The first here is Zack." PoH stated as he pointed towards the blond haired blue eyed player. Zack gave a short and almost unnoticeable nod, though Johnny could tell that a couple of the others had noticed too. "And this here is Lux." She gave a curt wave of the hand. If Johnny had to bet, he could say that the player in front of him wasn't the fabled black swordsman.

"I will personally take Zack under my arm as an appearance, once I believe I have taught him all I know he will be one of our top assassins." Zaza stated without even touch Zack as he gestured towards him. Johnny could tell without even looking at the other players that their was a few annoyed faces but thought nothing of it. "We'll train Lux to be one of our information specialist, Johnny is her mentor." Johnny tried as hard as he could for his face to remain stolid. This was why most of the players were on edge during these meetings. They never told you anything beforehand.

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And Lux is here

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapters will be up in a week

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	138. Approval

August 18, 2023

-Johnny Black and Lux-

"You don't like me at all now do you?" Lux asked almost rhetorically though Johnny had the faintest intuition that she was trying to seek some information out of him. Though Johnny was information specialist he was no detective, that department of the job was definitely his weak point. Lux on the other hand seemed also though she had none but Johnny knew this to be untrue. No matter how hard a person tries, no one can achieve flawlessness.

"Not particularly." Johnny stated without even thinking about it. After all the times he had lied through conversations and exploit other weaknesses for his own gain, it was nice to have at least on person who knew who he actually was. Perhaps he had chosen the wrong person as while Johnny wasn't trying to hide anything he was about eighty three percent positive that Lux was. The problem with not being a detective however is that he has absolutely no idea what it is or could be.

"I bet it is because I'm trying to steal your job isn't it." Lux looked at Johnny with an almost splitting image of Zaza. It made Johnny wonder why this girl wasn't under his wing but then again, the least subtle person Johnny had ever meet was Zaza and that was by a long shot. If Zaza had been more cunning than he was deadly maybe he would have been the male equivalent of Lux but alas Lux some type of rare breed that was exclusive to her.

"Nah, You're going to steal my job, you're a lot more easy on the eyes." Johnny said with a sight chuckle to his usually offical voice. There was a ton of reasons that Lux was going to be a great information specialist and the least of which was her looks. Johnny was almost positive that she could have had no training a been absolutely fine. The difference between her a Johnny couldn't be more apparent. While he calculates out all of his plans, Lux just goes with the flow.

"Not that I'm disagreeing with you but if they were gay I give you a seventeen percent chance that they would hit you up." Lux stated with now the most terrifying grin he had seen come from her face. Though this grin couldn't bare to parallel the ones Zaza showed when he was about to get a kill. However, the thing about this grin was that Johnny had a hard time figuring out if she was sincere or not. On one hand a grin like that couldn't be faked while on the other she sound incredibly convincing.

"Seventeen percent, that's high." Johnny said trying to make an equally confusing grin. He didn't know if it work as he could see his face and unfortunately like himself Lux knew how to conceal were definitely meant to do this job as neither one would show even a fleeting impression of an emotion that was even somewhat real. This made the conversation incredibly awkward yet difficult at the same time.

"I don't know, you have a lot of sharp features, makes you look a lot more mature." Lux said. Then she raised her left hand and ran it through his hair. "And your black hair is surprisingly soft." Lux said almost as she had already known that. This gave Johnny the idea that she had touched his hair once before but he couldn't remember a time or place where she may have done. Then a gain there really were no boundaries in Laughing Coffin. It was basically do whatever you want but remember, we can kill you and we will kill you.

"If I didn't know any better, I would think that you were trying to butter me up." Johnny stated as he collapsed at the booth they were at. Though he hadn't had much experience in the bars of the real world he had enough to know a the common tells and well even though Lux was young she had gotten a hold of them pretty good. That was one of the things Johnny had told, how to demand control over the bar environment without anyone noticing.

"Don't worry my little piece of toast all I need is for you to say I'm good to go." Lux said as she looked at him expectantly. She batted her eyes and looked at him with the cutest, and deadliest stare he had ever seen, and he had dealt with Argo on a bad day. But this stare wasn't needed as he knew she was ready, he had known since the first time she had shown him her skills. She had incredible potential, potential that didn't need much refinement.

"Ah ah, not yet young protege, you still have things left to learn." Johnny said with the most annoying voice that he could muster. The last time he had used a voice like that was when he was back in the real world mocking his friends. None of them followed him into the game and he was happy for them. No doubt that they were sad for him but they didn't have a young girl begging in front of them. Johnny had to take the wins where he got them.

"You didn't sound a thousand there." Lux stated in a voice that was both mocking and annoying unlike Johnny's. To be fair there was like an eight year age difference between them but as for skill she had him beat. It seemed as though she was made for this job and if he didn't know any better, she actually wanted it. A fair amount of Laughing Coffin members are blackmailed into then have to kill or be killed. It's actually a pretty sound way to gain members.

"Okay so here's the deal." Johnny said with a smirk. He was going to love watching her try to do what she was about to be told to do. "We're on floor forty, a front line floor and a Knights of the Blood Oath member just walked in, he's quite a high rank but he's alone." Johnny gestured over to the huge red head with an axe across his back. "All you have to do is become friends with, show me the result at the end." Johnny stated with a smirk.

"You bloody jerk, I'm going to kill you if make it through this." Lux stated exasperatedly as she stood up from the booth. "Oh yeah, and I'm using your cup too." Lux said as she reached and grabbed Johnny's cup without protest. Johnny was going to have fun watching what Lux had in store. It was no doubt already fabricated in her mind as to what she would do in this situation but Johnny just wanted to see if she could do what he couldn't.

Lux put her left hand in her pocket and used her right hand to grasp Johnny's drink. After taking a drink and very slowly ingesting the alcohol she approached the player and start to speak to him. Left hand still in her pocket, Lux leaned up against the bar counter facing the player. Though she was in conversation, Johnny had no idea what she was saying nor of her approach. However, it seemed like it was going smoothly as she had all of the players attention. They both laughed and then took huge gulps of their drinks. There was no restraint in Lux this time with the beer.

Finally after what felt like literally an hour, Lux looked as though she was ending the conversation. Johnny was able to read the words thanks off of Lux mouth but Lux didn't leave after that. After literally having her left hand in her pocket for an hour, Lux took her hand out of her pocket and extended it to the player who gladly shook it. Chuckling, Lux made her way back to Johnny with a smirk on her face.

"His name is Godfree and here you go." Lux stated as she collapsed on her side of the booth and took a drink of her drink. Johnny looked at the menu for a second then sent it back to Lux with a defeated expression. "Can you tell them that you're done now, and that I'm prepared, as much as I like you, you're an ass." Lux stated with extreme emphasis on ass. Johnny rolled his eyes then opened his menu.

"Nice handshake by the way." Johnny said as he start to type his message to PoH. "Really ties the whole conversation together, don't you think." Johnny said quite a sadistic grin if he could say so himself.

XXXX

Thank you all for reading this chapter

We're almost up to one hundred followers!

Next chapter will be up in a few

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	139. Assign

August 26, 2023

-PoH and Johnny Black-

"You know why I called you here I presume." PoH said as Johnny entered his shack. One of the many downsides to being a orange player was the fact that going into a town with being physically restraint would most likely lead to death. The only player to get around this was sitting right in front of him. He had heard the story from Zaza, the time that he almost killed a player within the boundaries of a town was definitely one of the guilds greatest feats.

"I have my sources yes but I came here with an open mind, I am willing to cooperate however you see fit." Johnny said as he slightly bowed his head and took a seat across from PoH. To be an information specialist you have to have quite a few sources both inside guilds and outside guilds. While he didn't have any sources inside front line guilds such as Knights of the Blood Oath and Storm of Centuries, he did have a source in a rather large unofficial guild, Laughing Coffin.

Though he never explicitly told that he did have one, Johnny knew that they knew he did and Johnny wouldn't be surprised if they knew who it was. His source inside the guild was to mainly monitor lower level members for conspiring against anyone that he cared about mainly, himself. The vast majority of Laughing Coffin was not made up of trustworthy people, quite the opposite in fact.

To make a guild such as Laughing Coffin work, you need a fair amount of killers, blackmailers, thieves, and crazy people. While being surrounded by people who are very much in the same boat as him was fun and all, he didn't trust them one bit. Though he trusted them to carry out their jobs, he didn't trust them not to kill one of their own. Bloodlust was an interesting things, he knew that if implied right could make an effective killing machine but if not sated it could also turn against itself.

"Are you sure I am the best option, I believe that there is a plethora of others that could do the deed." Johnny stated. If he was to take on the mission then that would mean changing his role in the guild and PoH knew this and yet wanted him to proceed. The mission had him killing but the probably was that he had already had four occasions where he had made a mistake a went orange for a couple of days. But if he made one more violation he would turn red.

"Most definitely as this mission will require an incredible amount of finesse. I highly doubt most of the people that would usually take on the mission could do so and we have already lost one member." PoH stated. This was mainly to recap what PoH had sent in a message and Johnny could confirm this fact. His source tells him that one of their most successful front line killers was killed in mission in the middle floors. This made it so Johnny was hard pressed to get out of the situation because he agreed with PoH.

"What about Zack, from what I heard about him is that he is exceptionally, possibly even better than Zaza at a few things." Johnny fabricated a substitution in under a second. It was true though from what Johnny had seen of Zack he possessed incredible skill in combat maybe to even be able to hold his own against a front line player. However he knew that Zack wouldn't be a suitable replace for many of the reasons that other players wouldn't be

Johnny and Zaza were complete opposites. Zaza focused on the brutal aspects of killings, savoring the kill, make the opponent beg for death. This Johnny did not do, he frankly found it repulsive and was open to anyone who criticised him on this fact. Like most of the players in Laughing Coffin Johnny was unyielding and stubborn to no end but he wasn't ruthless. Johnny prefered to end his opponents swiftly and quickly, though this usual meant a duel as he had only killed once before.

Zaza and by extension Zack obviously lacked the finesse for the kill. Whoever managed to get away from them the first time had skill no doubt and was cunning. The player they had sent down last time was a weaker Zaza who would first make the player empty out their inventory before killing them. PoH obviously speculated that the player took advantage of this and he killed him before he could even realize what was happening. Insanity was the act of doing the same thing over again and expecting different results, it was obvious that Johnny was one of the few different approaches.

"I don't trust him yet but that wouldn't make a difference as we both know you are the one who has the greatest chance of actually succeeding." PoH said with a voice that told Johnny it was time to stop playing games. Johnny was used to dealing with Zaza and Zaza was a lot easier to manipulate. On the other hand Johnny was a lot more like PoH than perhaps any other member as the both were cunning rather than ruthless.

"I'll need time to finish things up in the market, I say about two weeks to do so would be reasonable." Johnny stated. Obviously he would get two weeks, there was no way as PoH would likely give him a couple days tops and that was if he was in a good mood, if he wasn't well then Johnny would have another sleepless night. However the next action PoH took changed Johnny's initial thoughts as it was something that Johnny had never seen anyone in Laughing Coffin do much less the leader of it.

He looked at Johnny with a quizzical look. Most of the time nobody payed attention to others, they had no care in the world what emotions and thoughts was going through anyone else. Johnny however, had been this exception as he found it quite interesting the ways certain people react after getting a mission. Some were extremely happy, some extremely pensive, some even a little bit braggy, but he had never seen another Laughing Coffin member use their brain to analyze someone inside the guild.

"I'll give you two weeks but inside of ending everything transfer all of your street cred to Lux, she needs the jumpstart." PoH stated with a sigh of defeat. Johnny showed no emotion of excitement as he couldn't figure out if this was a godsend or hell on earth. It would most certainly require a great amount of finesse as he would need to transfer everything he knew about everyone to Lux. But on the other hand Lux was fairly good at absorbing everything, nearly perfect. He would either have a lot of time or none at all.

"Thank you." Johnny said as he bowed his head lower than last time. It was rare to have someone grant him something that he wanted inside of Laughing Coffin. Most of the players did not give a shit about what you wanted. This was especially true as most of the other members look down on him see he was a male information specialist. But that wasn't all that was on Johnny's mind as there obviously was a catch.

"On one condition however, if you fail then we will kill you." PoH stated with a bite to his voice. This wasn't a condition, it was apparent to Johnny immediately after the words left his mouth. It was a threat, quite blatant one at that. If he were to not go through with the mission or for some reason betray them then like all the other traitors he would be killed and the type of death he used, the type of death that Zaza used one that would have him begging to be killed.

"Thank you." Johnny stated sincerely.

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I hope you all enjoyed this chapter!

Thanks to all of you who have review, it means a lot

Next chapters will be up in a week

Have a wonderful week!

-Kirk


	140. Touchstone

September 12, 2023

-Johnny Black-

A test, that's all it was, all he had to do was pass. In fact he could fail telebreally and as long as he had succeeded then the way he got there would be of no consequence. But he would fail, at least he knew that now. Covering his face, Johnny sighed he just can't seem to do it. No matter how much he wanted, no matter how much he pushed himself he couldn't go through with it. Unlike every other member of his guild he just didn't have the propensity to kill.

The women that he was currently spying on was like no other, at least she acted as though she was. Confidence flows through her in the buckets, while her dark hair was bunned up with a green band. To the casually observer she looked like a fair maiden but Johnny had been watching her for nearly two days now and he could tell that this wasn't the case. She was far more independent than anyone he had everyone seen and that included himself.

Over the forty eight hours Johnny had seen her interact with quite a few players. The vast majority of them were part of her guild, which she as the leader of. In addition to that she talked to two different information brokers, most notably of the two was Argo. From that conversation Johnny could tell that she was unyielding as from what he could overhear she never went higher then what she wanted to pay.

But the last person that she had talked to was probably the most interesting of all, Diavel second in command of Knights of the Blood Oath. If he could have attack him he would have as he knew that if an opportunity would ever arise to kill him with minimal people around they would take. He could never let Zaza know that he might have passed up an opportunity like that one, but alas she didn't come out of the safe zone until an hour ago and finally she was alone.

They were on floor forty and she was fairly leveled. From what he could tell the only thing that was keeping them from not joining the front lines was her husband. He was an interesting character a lot more so than the person in front of him. According to his sources he was the one who ordered his wife to be killed and that just doesn't seem like husband material. The reasoning was that she was more independent. Even though the relationships he had been had never gotten to live with each other part, the thought off that made him vomit. He most definitely wasn't husband material or really any material.

Johnny had never had a long term relationship but at least he had the decency to you know break up with them. That bastard was taking the widow approach and Johnny did not approve. However, it wasn't his job to correct their obviously flawed relationship, it was his job to remove Griselda from the face of this game. This task of course was not meant to be overly hard but somehow proved to be one of the hardest things he had yet to face. It even top the one time he had to break up with an extremely clingy girl, who to say the least was balling her eyes out while she punched the living the crap out of him.

Looking up for a while Johnny observed how she fought. Another reason behind why she would not join the front lines had appeared before his every eyes. She was mediocre in her fighting style. Nothing to bad that could be taken advantage of but she had no obvious strength or skill for that matter. This made the grinding that she was doing rather dull for Johnny was there was nothing of note or interest.

She wielded a short sword that looked as though it was a rapier but he knew it was not. The reason he knew this was because she also had a shield with. There was an undisputed rule when it came to rapiers, shields do not go with them. Unlike almost every other weapon, rapier had the innate ability to get stronger as they were faster. This meant that in order to use it to the maximum they would have to be as lightweight as possible. Shields do not help this scenario as all they do is weigh you down for extra armor points.

Upon examining her sword more closely it was a leaf blade. He did not know the exact name of the sword but it was basically a short sword that could function as a rapier. The sword was also used by Tsubaki in the front lines but she did it far better than Griselda could. She rarely ever used it's rapier functions, if she did it was for an easy last strike. Her style of fighting was really boring and stagnate but Johnny could see why she did, it was effective at least towards mobs.

Johnny continued to do what he knew best, he gathered more information. She had one ring on each hand, both of different styles. The one of her left hand was the simple wedding band that appeared on your ring finger when you got married or her case, proposed to. There had been every few of these Johnny has ever seen, this one being the most notable one. A couple when he was not apart of Laughing Coffin had the rings and so did a player back on floor twenty six that he had stolen from. These rings were unique in that they couldn't be taken off unless the couple was no longer married.

There was one thing that had confused Johnny though, and had went against his last statement. According to his intel, Griselda's husband didn't have one his wedding band when meet up with PoH. Only after immensive amounts of connecting the dots did he figure it out. And by immensive amount, he means just saying them kiss each other in the middle of the square. To be honest if Johnny didn't know any better he would have thought everything between them was fine.

But if it had been fine between him he wouldn't be here. He would most likely be doing a different mission, an easier mission but alas the one he had been given was quite the challenge. It wouldn't have been a challenge for any other member of Laughing Coffin but it was a challenge for him. Johnny wouldn't doubt it that everything he had been told about their previous attempts had been a lie. The only thing keeping him from thinking this was that he at least wanted to keep some faith that his sources wouldn't feed him false information.

The result of his actions directly lead to Johnny hiding in the bushes, spying on Griselda. If he had the decency to act cival a break up with someone like a normal human being, Johnny may have a much easier decision today. However that was not the case, her husband had acted selfish and Johnny was going to pay for it. He was shoved into the crossroads and forced to make a decision one that would change everything for him.

He could do what PoH wanted him to do, kill her swiftly and effectively. This would be a quick death and she would never have to know about her husband's betrayal. Or she could run away and be a coward. If he did this he wasn't saving her life. She had a contract on her head that would be fulfilled as it had quite the pay out. If he didn't kill he would die in exchange for her living maybe a day longer.

Neither of these options felt satisfactory to Johnny. It was a matter of which way his heart turn to white or black, cowardice or selfishness. Each of these two choice were a blow to his moral integrity he couldn't just sit back and let other people dictate his life. That was not Johnny Black's way, not anymore at least. The choice he made now would be the one he followed until the bitter end. Johnny would rather die by his own means the someone psychopathic killer's.

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Thank you all for support this fan-fic we are at hundred followers! And with this chapter we break 200,000 words. Thank you all lot

Just ten more for hundred favorites!

Next chapter will be up in a few

Have a fantastic day!

-Kirk


	141. Thump

September 12, 2023

-Johnny Black-

If you're going to do this you have to do it right. Not a single misstep, as if you are trying to ace a math test. While this may not be your strong suit you have to be able to pull it off. You already choose not to take the easier road now you have to take the hard one and no half assing it. Come on, pull yourself together, there's no way you can do this if you don't pull yourself together, Come On!

It was official, after almost a year in the game, Johnny Black was insane. This of course didn't surprise him one bit as well his best friends were psychopathic killers, and not the friendly type. If anyone was watching him on the outside, Johnny wondered if they knew what he was doing. That was a chilling thought as if anything that in the game he hoped would never seep over into real life. It wasn't him and as of right now the act of killing someone would allow his actions to be seen in the real world, and Johnny would do anything to delay this, even risk his life.

Johnny opened up his menu a scrolled down probably to his one ticket out of this hellhole, a scroll. However, this was no longer Johnny's ticket out, it was the girl in front of his, the who he was commissioned to kill. Over his time as an information specialist he had came across several interesting items but only picked up one of them. From Argo personal he had bargained a scroll that had the ability to change a player's in game name.

All of the effects of the scroll were list in it's description. Changed only the players name nothing, but it could also be used to change the name of a guild or a familiar, whatever that is. For the case of players it had an interesting interaction with most likely the most famous monument in the game. This monument listed very player's name, dead or not. It is said to have just under ten thousand names on the wall and as each player with a name dies, said name in crossed off. The scroll changes the user's name not only in menu's but also on the monument. If used effectively it could wipe a player of the face of the game.

That was the plan or had been the plan. Johnny was to use if he had ever gotten into to deep and didn't want to get out but now he knew that he had a service to do. If he didn't kill them no doubt another member would, Johnny would have to make their deaths quick and fast. But for some reason he couldn't, his first innocent kill and he was chickening out. He wasn't a killer, at least not like all the other players. His mind held a moral conscious one that would differentiate himself from all the other members and right now it was telling him not to kill her.

First he would have to be smart, if he was about to do something incredibly stupid at least be smart about the prelude. Johnny closed his eyes and relaxed. Once he had gotten his rate down to just a little bit above normal he start to try to sense if anyone was out there. In being a thief he would have to only strike when one person is around and the only way to make sure of this now was to try to sense anyone else. Let's just say that even though Johnny didn't sense anyone other than the girl, he still had no clue if anyone else was around. However, that isn't going to delay him any longer.

"Hey." Johnny as he jumped out of the tree he was currently hiding in. It takes a couple moments before the woman in front of him realises that it was she who had been spoken to. "I'm going to tell you something and have you do something, that you will most likely reject because it sounds literally insane in every way imaginable." Johnny had figured out that his approach of being honest and blunt would work better than one of his calculated lies. The lies would be saved for later.

She doesn't run away which is supposed to be a good sign but the look on her face is everything but that. The most prevalent look is obviously a look a pure confusion as most people would have. Her second look on her face is the one that Johnny didn't want to see, doubtfulness. This would make it a lot harder as the last look she had made Johnny suspect that she was considering telling him off then turning around and walking away.

It should have been the scariest part at the moment but somehow someway it was outclassed be something so small, Johnny was the only one to notice it. A leaf rustled a tree three away from the one he had jumped out of. Most people would take it to mean that there was a wind which Johnny could obviously feel that there wasn't one. Plus after spending ten minutes in one of those trees he knew that there were no mobs in sight.

The next couple of seconds and movements were all like muscle memory to Johnny. He took the dagger hidden in his left sleeve out and started getting to the motion of throwing. Turning he threw the dagger directly at the tree he had wanted to hit. And without aim or think his dagger hit something other than a tree. If it had been the tree it would have simply fell to the ground but it didn't. It must have killed something because almost a second later an explosion of blue fought the green leaves. His last movement was a crucial one, he looked up to see what color his cursor was. It was orange.

"Look, I don't care about what you think of me or this situation but you are going to listen because if you don't I will kill you. If you don't do what I ask I will kill you, do I make myself clear." Johnny stated with a surprising authoritative sound even though he's barely twenty. The threats however, were completely empty as much as Johnny wanted them not to be. But she didn't take them that way as she nodded.

"Good." Johnny stated, obviously relieved but he tried his darndest not to show it. "I am a member of Laughing Coffin." Her eyes lit up with fear as he rolled up his sleeve to show her the mark. "And I was sent here to kill you." Johnny lets her recollect her thoughts as she had just the verbal equivalent of a bat hitting her face in this game. Even she knew who Laughing Coffin was, but she didn't back away nor try to grab her blade.

"W-Who sent you?" She asked with a small voice. It was plain and clear that she was scared. Johnny could easily lie and tell a multitude of lies. In fact in about a second he had came up with two. Either my boss which emits an aura of complete silence or simply you're to strong and we're killing off strong people. But Johnny would choose neither of these as honest was the best policy. Well he didn't exactly think that exact thought but something along those lines.

"Your husband and before you ask why, I don't know." Johnny stated bluntly yet honestly. All he got out of her was a nod but Johnny took this to mean he could continue. "I have decided not to kill you and I ask for nothing in return other than your compliance." Johnny said as his eyes refused to look directly at her. But even so he could see her head as she understood what he was asking as she let a feeble okay along with a small nod.

"I have an item that can change your ingame name to anything and it will help you go off the map. In addition I will also need you to cut all current ties including the marriage and guild. For the guild just leaving it should suffice but the marriage needs more skill. Everything in your shared inventory needs to go towards him including all of the money. The only things you will get to keep is what you have equipped right now. I also wish that you disguise yourself at least for the next months. And lastly because I already know this has crossed your mind, at least give it a month before you go after you husband and if you do, kill him. He seems like a real bastard." Johnny finished curtly as he took the scroll out of his inventory and dropped it into her cupped hands. "Oh yeah and can I have the ring that increases speed?" Johnny asked out of the blue while she was staring at the scroll.

"Sure, may I ask why?" She asked him as she gave him the valuable ring.

"This is supposed to be the reason you died, well that what he said anyways. My leaders will like be a lot more if I give them some bling." Johnny said with a smirk and defeated sigh. He turned around and started to walk away before she called back to him.

"Don't you what to see me do it?" She asked as she caught up with him.

"I could care less if you do it, it's in your hands now but I do have one thing to tell you. If you don't they'll be after both of our heads."

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And the fates have changed, another person destined to has managed to stay alive!

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapters will be up in the usual week

Have a wonderful week!

-Kirk


	142. Tarry

October 1, 2023

-PoH, Zaza, Johnny Black, Zack-

Johnny had to commend Lux, she was better than he could have ever been. Among the many pieces of information that she had passed into Laughing Coffin she also made sure another info broker had it to, so that she wouldn't look to suspicious. This was usually a precaution but now it actually would help out exponentially. The last most recent piece of information that Lux had been able to procure was one of the best information the guild had ever gotten, a list of Holy Dragon Alliances dungeon runs and their times on places where they would be.

The Holy Dragon Alliance was presumably the third strongest guild in the game, or fourth depending on who you asked. For instance if you asked anyone currently around Johnny they would say that they were the fourth strongest guild, behind them of had been around since the early stages of the game but with a different name. Most of the major front lines guilds either went through a major reform or died out around floor twenty five. This guild in particular had went through a drastic reform.

Back around floor thirty Johnny had been charged with figuring out a weakness behind this guild and he had came up with quite a few things. Firstly, much like their own guild the guild had some serious trust issues. Johnny suspected it lied in the guild formation and history. After the immense amount of research behind the guild Johnny had went through there were multiple reasons behind this. A lot of them were jerks, thinking that they are better than everyone else, your average gamer. Their also greedy as all hell not to mention that many of it's original members aren't in the guild anymore.

When Johnny asked Lux how she did she just scoffed and said it was ridiculously easy. Apparently all she had to do was bait one of the guys into giving her the list and it didn't even take more than half an hour. Once again Johnny had to give her props as he could have never done that. However, Johnny did silently curse her as if she had never gotten the information he would have never been in this situation. The last time he was in a tree he killed someone and well he's in a tree again.

This time however, he wasn't exactly obligated to kill anyone as there was none that they had seen yet. In truth this was just to smooth of Johnny's fears of absolute failure and it wasn't going so well. Basically every killing member of Laughing Coffin was around him and any failure would most likely amount in death. He couldn't miss a single opportunity to kill as if he didn't take any opportunity then he was inviting everyone around him to take any opportunity in his itself was a chilling thought but after a while of these chilling thoughts you learn to calm your nerves.

It just takes some people longer than most. Johnny rotated his knife in his hand. He was to be long range support from the trees. Both Zaza and PoH said that they wanted to keep most unknown players hidden, and that included Johnny. Basically Johnny was to engage in close quarters only if things got to be extremely dire. This was of course the way that Johnny would like it to be. The further he was from all the known psychopathic killers the better.

The majority of know Laughing Coffin members were the extreme of the extreme. Both Zaza and PoH were both after a couple unsuccessfully attempts at a beater name Coper's life. Most of the others were killers who bit off more than they could chew. This usually ended up being the overzealous ones. The ones who thought that they were so powerful in fact that could Diavel or Heathcliff. In fact Johnny could remember two or three of them who lost theirs lives trying to take out the best of the best.

There was one exception to PoH and Zaza's rule and that was Zack. It was perfectly clear in Johnny's and probably everyone else mind that Zack was to lead this confrontation as both Zaza and PoH wanted to show off their newest masterpiece. From what Johnny had heard around the guild he could make out that Zack had some immense potential. And it wasn't going unused. He was nearing the end of his appearance ship with Zaza and this was a first for Zaza two.

Zaza is known as the one you don't want to get yourself involved with, even if you are inside Laughing Coffin. Where most members had been shown that they are killers from unfortunate circumstances, Zaza hadn't. In the early days of Sword Art Online he was known to take out solo players particularly beaters. Now almost halfway through the game three beaters remained and they were quite possibly the strongest players on the front lines.

The Knowledge Twins or Tsubaki and Ran are two of the three. Deadly smart in almost every aspect, they have a part in every boss raid even if they don't fight in it. They make up the majority of the front lines battle plans in floor boss raids. Outside of their innate knowledge they are said to both be insane duelist only match in skill and style by each other. After all of that, they know that Zaza wants their heads and they never got out of the towns alone.

To be fair the last one isn't on the front lines but he still has the levels of a front line player. The Black Swordsman and original beater is one of three who haven't died yet. Johnny has heard the stories from both Zaza and PoH at their failed attempts at his life and they have gotten pretty damn near close. But somehow someway he had avoided death each time and now he was stronger than ever. He was one of the few players in the game that Zaza ever felt uneasy about.

An apprentice of Zaza takes nearly everything you got. Firstly, you have to be extremely similar to Zaza in the way you kill people, you have to draw it out savor it. Secondly, you have to have innate skill. Zaza puts his disciple through thick and thin with expecting him to be able to live up to the task and well you have to have skill comparable to Zaza to do it. Lastly, you have to not die. Zaza is brutal as hell, he loses more apprentices from killing by his own then he does from any other means.

Johnny looked up towards were Zack was perched. His spear was grasped only by one hand his left and his other hand rest one his shoulder. From what Johnny had been hearing he concluded that Zack was a powerhouse, if slightly unstable, the perfect making for a psychopathic killer. But what Johnny found most interesting was the fact that he had a brother in the game. A brother that quite frankly wants to jail him and everyone in Laughing Coffin.

However, Zack is nothing like his brother. The most obvious difference is their way of fighting. Zack goes all out and is insane, doesn't let up until he knows he winning then he savors his enemies despair. His brother is completely different as he wields a shield. Preferring to sit behind it, Kazuma lets his opponents tire themselves down before unleashing his final attack. With that said he was interested to actually see Zack fight instead of just hearing about it.

Out of the corner of his eye Johnny saw Zack stand up and attach his spear to his back and Johnny immediately knew what that meant. The targets were nearing closer. Johnny checked all of his knives and made sure that the were all easy to to reach and were in throwing position. Unlike Zack however he did not stand up, he was told to stay hidden. It was obvious that if any of the players saw him now that they would run away but seeing as they were in heavy armor and Zack had no armor on whatsoever, Zack wasn't worried about this.

Zack spoke in a hushed whispering voice that did not carry over to where Johnny was. The only reason that Johnny knew Zack had even opened his mouth was that he was looking at him. Taking a glance at the players behind the were nodding a preparing their weapons but none were as prepared as Zack. Zack raised his left hand and placed it on Zaza's shoulder and gave him a hard nodded. In response to this Zaza nodded back and turned around to make sure that everyone else was ready. After doing one last pregame stretch, Zack jumped out of his tall tree and hit the ground with a deafening thud.

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Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Thank you to all who have given support to this fan-fic

Next chapter will be up in a few

Have a wonderful day

-Kirk


	143. Trade

October 1, 2023

-PoH, Zaza, Johnny Black, Zack-

Before today Zack would have said that the most dangerous thing he had ever done had taken place in the real world. Before today Zack would have said that the most life altering event happened in the real world. Before today Zack didn't know if he could accept change but know he wouldn't have to accept it, it would naturally happen to him. That would all change today, whether he liked it or not. And he had taken one monumental leap in his life accepting this fact, right before he jumped out of the tall jungle tree and onto the battlefield that was covered in leaves.

He hit the ground rather hard and not at all in the easiest of fashion though it could be pulled of nonchalantly. Both of his legs were completely stiff and his knees didn't buckle, even a bit. This of course result in a lot of pain that he had not expected though to be fair, who lands on the ground like that. I mean you'd think with the amount of butterflies in Zack's stomach they could have been to slow the fall but then again those butterflies aren't real.

And now his whole body was aching, like hell. That of course was as helpful as the entirety of Laughing Coffin behind him. Not only did it annoy the crap out of him, there was no upside. This was not how this should start off, with over fifty eyes looking at him, he was aching in pain while his butterflies destroyed his stomach. However, this is nothing compared to facing the judges, lying and getting away with it. Zack swallowed all of the built up saliva in his mouth and open his mouth, about to say the first words of the confrontation.

"Hello members of the dragon alliances." Zack yelled with special emphasis on the word members. It was to the point where it made the pop the p words make. Zack was surprised that his voice could even reach as loud as it did, but thankfully it did, now everyone could hear him. "I am Zack, bestower of karma I am the left hand of Laughing Coffin." Zack yelled with a snarl. All of the green players in front of him who hadn't raised their weapons did so now. "And I challenge your leader to a duel."

Allowing the last statement sink in, Zack observed the players before him. Out of the eleven players there, he could only find three of which that were not worthy. Upon looking at Lynd however, he saw that Lynd would most likely not accept his offer, and that well wasn't to his guilds liking. It would be the show before all their deaths. Not allowing Lynd anymore time for cowardice, Zack slammed his hands together, catching the left one in the right. Thanks to his gauntlets, it made a sound reminiscent of the clashing of swords and stopped all talking at once.

"Let me be a little more clear, if you refuse then I will see to it that all of you are kill, and if you don't believe me there are a few front liners who know just how strong I am. I tell you their names but what's the use, they're already dead." Zack yelled with a laugh at the end. Upon doing research behind Lynd, he had found out a few interesting things. Other than him possibly liking Diavel more than everyone one else, he knows that he won't allow anyone around him to do, at least he'll try his best to see to it.

"Fine then, but I won't take it easy on you." Lynd said as he stepped out of the crowd. Zack allowed a snarl to form across his face as Lynd walked into the duel. Truth be told if the duel didn't happen, his superiors wouldn't be mad as that means one of them would get to kill him. However, this is how Zack wanted it. This is death would most likely be swift and it would serve to bolster his trust between him and the rest of Laughing Coffin.

"Send me the duel request and make it to the death." Zack stated. This took Lynd aback a bit but not the part that everyone else would think. Most duels with Laughing Coffin members weren't formal, no they were chaotic and Lynd knew this. Back in the beginning of the game one of their members had tried to kill them, and did a pitiful job doing so. The story goes that he didn't even got a hit off before being mercifully killed.

Of course, Zack followed in Laughing Coffins footsteps and he wasn't about to go through some formal duel with bows and samurai swords, no this was exactly the opposite. Zack activated probably the most devastating skill he had found for sneak attacking yet and ran at Lynd. The skill quadrupled his speed without any load up time. The downside of this being that it only last for about five seconds, enough time for him to get to Lynd and attack.

Lynd just barely sidestepped Zack killing uppercut and without even closing his menu he launch a horizontal at Zack. This strike would've taken out Zack's head easily. The two handed sword that Lynd used as excellent at simple but strong attacks. However, this wouldn't be the best weapon for the situation as Zack could take advantage of the bulkier, slower attack style of Lynd with his sporadic beatdown style that he had perfected.

After dodging Lynd fatal counter attack they both launched into a flurry of strikes and attacks. Zack allowed Lynd to be the aggressor as he was much better on defending with his hands then attacking but with that said it wasn't a battle of attrition as Zack kept pressure on him at maximum. For each of Lynd's slow effective strikes, Zack counter with both of his hands then did a feint attack at Lynd. These strikes were mainly just to test the waters as they usually didn't end up in a hit. But a couple of times Zack was able to hit Lynd and each time they hurt more than the last time.

Slowly over the cross of the duel Zack was getting faster as he was able to barrel into faster and faster movements. This was Zack's strategy. Be able to eventually able to overwhelm Lynd with the speed of his attacks, and barely a minute into the battle Lynd was seemingly learn what Zack was doing and was trying to break apart from the close quarters dueling. But Zack wasn't having any of this.

He easily transition to the aggressor and realised just how good Lynd was on defense. While Zack was launching four strikes for every one of Lynd's attacks now, Lynd was still able significantly lower the number of strikes he could get off. But with the ones he was able to get, he forcing Lynd into worse and worse situations until Zack had Lynd right where he had wanted him. Lynd's hands were both on his sword which was now in the follow through phase of his attack and Zack had finally had in the position to take two certain attacks.

Using his right hand he punched Lynd's sword causing it to vibrate badly. This cause Lynd to immediately jerk his left hand off the sword and this is right where Zack wanted it to be, off the sword. Just moments before Zack activated a knife hand skill and shot it towards where Zack predicted Lynd's left wrist to be. And he was right. Zack's easily ripped through the thin piece of player data that was Lynd's wrist. With that done, Zack jumped back expecting a violent lash out from Lynd.

"How'd you like my gauntlets, custom made by the Laughing Coffin blacksmith, very few chinks, incredible for defending, not the most durability but incredibly mobility." Zack gloated at Lynd as he attempted to cradle his missing left hand. "But that isn't my main weapon." Zack snarled as he pulled his spear of his back. "This is my main weapon, just imagine how fast I can attack with this spear?" Zack stated as he balanced the spear on his left index finger.

"Let's find out shall we." Zack said nonchalantly. He dash at Lynd as Lynd readied his sword. Once he got within striking distance, brought his sword above his head and thrust it down with all of strength. Zack held his spear up horizontally and let Lynd swords hit and when it was vertically Zack placed his right hand on his spear and push the swords directory away from his shoulder. Zack grabbed onto his spear and start to rotate, flip, and swivel his sword in as different motions as he could muster before finally ending them all right in between Lynd's ribcage. "Better luck in next life." Zack whispered, barely loud enough for Lynd to hear but he did as his last movement was to look up at Zack with the aura of why in his eyes.

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The power of Zack is not to be underestimated

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter!

Next chapters will be up in a week

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	144. Try

October 1, 2023

-PoH, Zaza, Johnny Black, Zack-

"You Bastard!" That was probably one of the shouts of disdain that had the least about of derogatory terms. All of them would have gotten him soap in his mouth in younger years but this did not matter to Zack. Of the shouts of agony he had just heard were just. After all he had just killed their leader, if they hadn't had some retaliation it would have been an insult to his image. But what Zack was waiting for was after they got their shouts, he was waiting for them attack him.

And that they did, or at least they tried. All ten members of the Holy Dragon Alliance rushed at him weapons draw and looking for blood, his blood to be specific. This would be the point where the rest of the Laughing Coffin players would drop down, but Zack had the sneaking suspicion that they had been ordered to do otherwise. That case however, was something for another time as he had ten front line players running at him.

This was enough to make even the strongest of men wet their pants. To be fair, if he had been younger and more innocent, Zack may have done just that. But that was in a past life, from a time where the memories brought sorrow and mourning. From a place where all of the memories that could be found would be found in the deepest most concealed places of his mind and thoughts. To go against his ideals he needed to harder his ideals and that is just what he had done.

Rather than wet his pants like many would have, Zack twirled his spear above his head then brought it in front of him. Summoning all of the strength that he had, Zack launched himself into an impressive jump. The jump gave him at least three meters into the air to be concluded by a sharp and powerfully downwards acceleration. Zack used this to produce one of the strongest verticals he had ever pulled of. This however, did not kill the player it was aimed at, it merely disarmed him of his longsword.

Zack easily and quickly transitioned into a linear but backed out of it almost as fast to deflect a linear from an estoc user. In all his times inside Sword Art Online he had never faced an estoc user. He had only knew of one player to wield an estoc and that was his 'master'. During all of the time of his teachings Zaza had never dueled him. Zack hypothesized that this was because Zaza thought Zack might be stronger than him and didn't want to chance ruining his image. Nonetheless the player who had just attacked him wasn't a well known player, not one of the ones he would have to fear.

Using a prediction defensive countermeasure, Zack transitioned into attack that player. One of the problems with facing a player like the one in front him was that their weapons were among the fastest in the game. Zack's however was not. Though there was a lot bulky weapons to be found a spear wasn't on the same playing field as an estoc. A spear was much more like a short sword in it's speed, though it did have the increased maneuverability as the larger handle offered many different styles of attacking and defending.

It was apparent to Zack that the player in front of was fairly decent at using the estoc but after Zack used his gauntlet to block one of his hits he lost the lead. In his new position Zack turned it into quite easily disarming the player. Thanks to the fact that an estoc is used with one hand and his left handed dominance this wasn't a hard task. However, getting time to himself was a hard task as Zack had to once again deflect a weapon.

This time it was a long sword but that wasn't all as the player also had a shield. A tank, one of the hardest players to crack with his approach as a bunch of slam weak attacks against a shield don't generate pain. However, that wasn't all he had a friend with him. The player wasn't the strongest against him as he was a heavy axe user, it would be easy enough to to disarm and kill him but with another to help him he could to prove to be dangerous.

Zack quickly picked up the estoc that he had disarm and duel wield the spear and the estoc. It took him almost no time to realise that he knew nothing of how to wield an estoc. Maybe just maybe it may have been a good idea to pick up the long sword instead but at least the estoc wouldn't get in the way that much. At least that what he thought until he realised that he used both of his hands to wield his spear.

After just releasing this, the tank rushed him. Zack didn't even try to use the estoc, instead he used it as a projectile to bait the player into the position that he wanted him in. This was easy as their was two choices the player could realistically do. Either deflect with his sword or let it bounce of his shield and thankfully he chose the latter. This was right where Zack wanted him, one the defensive with his shield retracted.

As fast he could, Zack ran at the player and jumped. The player like most indistinctively hid behind his shield and taking this to his advantage, Zack used it as a launching pad to get out of the predicament of where he was. Though he had not stopped to take a look around, he knew that he had been surrounded by all ten of the players. Of course since it wasn't augmented with a skill of special item he didn't go far into the air, but with the air time that he did get was able to pull off one short attack. That attack nicked the side of the tanks head, taking of his left ear.

Not even a second after he touched the ground he was attacked by the axe user. Using the weight of his blade to his advantage, the axe user attack him both a vertically. Due to the heavy nature of an axe, Zack couldn't just knock it out of the way, no he would take a different approach. Holding his spear horizontally, he let the player slam his axe into his spear, which surprising didn't snap under pressure, at least not immediately. Zack knowing that his spear wouldn't last long at all, transitioned his attack into what he liked to call, the fan.

This of course was a similar action towards that of a fan. Zack would spin his spear and it would provide for fairly decent cover and attack opportunities but in doing so this time, pushed the axe to the ground. The fan action didn't go on for even another second before Zack transition into a short jab. Unfortunately he attack with the blunt side of his spear, this would cause for pain, not murder. Fortunately, he hit the guys nuts, which provides for maximum pain and sent the guy to the ground groan, holding his crotch. Zack knew it was a cheap shot, but so was a ten versus one so.

However, he wasn't able to take advantage of this as he was blocked by yet another player, which was a longsword user. He was a different, no doubt a disciple of Lynd and he attacked Zack without restraint. This made the task of disarming him quite easy and once he did, Zack snatched his sword out of the air with his left hand a brought it down across the player's body, splitting him in two and killing him.

All of the other players stared at him, frozen in fear as he threw the sword at the axe user's head, killing him instantly. "Anyone else want to try me!" Zack yelled, no doubt obviously loud enough for his so called guildmates to hear it. No one moved for what felt like minutes before an arrow shot at him. Zack easily sidestepped it and sent his spear hurling at the player who did it. It made it's mark right in between the eyes where it had also gone through the hand. "Four of your fellow guildmates dead, does anyone else want to try me!" Zack yelled, repeating himself. Zack again punched his left hand into his right making a loud clang, which sent chills up all of the survieing dragon members.

At that moment the rest of Laughing Coffin, at least the members that were supposed to follow him up when he killed Lynd jumped down to the floor. They were all afraid of him now, including both Zaza and PoH. He had showed just what he is capable of doing and they didn't want to be on the wrong side of him. Fear in Laughing Coffin translated into respect and that is what Zack had hoped to achieve. Unlike the other members Zack didn't just kill for killing's sake, no he did it because it was his job. He would infiltrate Laughing Coffin and find a way to destroy them from within and earning their respect was the first step towards many.

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The power of a killer, this chapter was a joy to write

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter will be up in a few

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	145. Transformation

October 7, 2023

-Asuna, Sinon, Argo, Diavel, Heathcliff, Klein, Ran, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

"Thank you all for coming on such short notice but I believe that all of you would like to know the information that we had just uncovered." Diavel said with his usually announcer voice just the inside version. Sinon didn't know if she would really care about the information about to be revealed but honestly she didn't mind coming to these meetings with Saffi. In the real world she was often treated younger than her age but with Saffi she didn't have any of that.

"As you all hopely know, the guild Laughing Coffin was a guild in the lower floors but they have started to get more ambitious over the last month." Diavel stated with a note of mechnolochly. This intrigued Sinon as this was something that importance that couldn't go unnoticed. Murderers, all of them and they were the worst of the worst, according to Argo. Notorious for their knack for torturing and the fact that any person that they had been contracted to kill was killed, no matter the costs.

Sinon could think of one time of the top of her head that they hadn't killed in their first attempt, in fact not even the second one was successful. However, she couldn't provide a first hand account at the lethality of the players as she had yet to run into them. Like most people Sinon was glad that she had not yet run into them as she would not like to face against an actually psychopath. Though she had had supposedly met one, they were ten times worse than anyone could get her to believe.

"In accordance to the disappearance of eleven Holy Dragon members, they were to blame for this." Diavel stated, attempting to make his voice sound as objective as possible. Sinon had heard the rumor from her fellow guildmates and it was not a pretty one. There had been many different explanations from mass suicide, to death by mid boss, and even the ever so likely scenario that was unfolding in front of them, that they had been killed by other players.

Out of the eleven that had gone missing, Sinon had heard of eight of them. While many other players on the front lines would know all of them, but that was not the case for Sinon. She didn't know that majority of the players outside of Storm of Centuries. This made the fact that they had went missing all the more frightening to Sinon as she had actually heard of most of them. They were either leaders of certain parts of the Holy Dragon Alliances or some of the strongest members that they had been able to string in. To put it lightly, the guild was having troubles without them.

"Hello everyone, you all know me but to the people who have had a momentary lapse of memory, I am Argo, self appointed hub of all knowledge inside Aincrad." Argo stated gloatingly as she bowed her head in a sarcastic motion. If they had been in the world, she would have been punished for disorderly conduct but since they weren't, Argo's way of speaking could pass through. Whipping her hair as she raised her once again, Argo revealed a wicked smirk.

"Now, let's get down to business." Argo's tone shifted without any time in between, she was now in a state that Sinon had never seen her in before, she was serious. "About one week ago a leveling party consisting of the majority of the Holy Dragons Alliances high level members was ambushed on floor forty five." Argo stated. She gave a couple of seconds for the players in front of her to exchange nervous glances. While Sinon herself didn't know any of the players personally, most of the other players did.

Doing what she did best Sinon observed the players around her in the couple of moments. Both Heathcliff and Kazuma had their posture incredibly straight and their fingers cross in front of them, neither of them show any emotion that Sinon could pick up on. In contrast her leader, Saffi was lounging in her chair without a care in the world. She would have had her feet on the table if Asuna hadn't asked her to not place them on the table. Their third in command, Magi was a cross between the two leaders, lounging slightly but not so much that she would give off the aura of boredom. Diavel looked like himself but with just a touch of nervousness.

Klein kept exchanging glances to his second in command with nervous looks. Truth be told, Sinon wouldn't have known who Klein's second was if he hadn't introduced himself himself as he entered the room. Next to them was Tsubaki who, if Sinon were to guess was playing with her restless hands underneath the table. Though she did exchange glances with Klein and Ran. This, however was unsuccessful with Ran as Ran had her menu open and was obviously doing something incredibly important. Her face gave Sinon the slightest clue to what she was doing. The place where Sinon had seen faces similar to hers was in math class, especially in the long drawn out problems.

Lastly was Asuna and she seemed to be doing exactly what Sinon had been doing, that was until their eyes crossed paths a lingered for a second. They really hadn't talked that too much since the first couple of months but when they did the conversation were either forced to be not awkward which of course made them awkward, or just awkward. However, they had respect for each other and would help each other out when one of them asked. This did not make it so their eyes look at each other for long as there were definitely so unresolved tension between them.

"As Diavel had said the players responsible for this were the orange guild named Laughing Coffin." Argo said with a slight nod to Diavel. "I have conducted quite a lot of research on them for one of my clients and I can assure that the guild is real as if have found multiple tracks that lead to them." Argo stated as she opened up her menu. "Everyone in this room I would trust with my life and that's why you all were invited, while others were not. I will send each and everyone of you my notes once the meeting is over, if any of you don't want them please tell me now." Argo remained quiet for a couple of moments. No one would dare say no as it would look suspicious and Argo persisted on.

"Now, I have some of the more important information I wish to tell you. According to sources the eleven players were ambushed by somewhere near forty players. They want strength in numbers and I believe it it safe to assume that most of the players do not have front line worthy levels. To support this theory of mine most of their past attacks have been on middle level floors and taken on by a singular member. This suggest of course that the players aren't the strongest though they can handle themselves." Argo finally took a much needed breath, at least Sinon's opinion.

"In addition to that we have some interesting knowledge about what happen in the ambush." Argo began then she saw the look on Sinon's face and stop to recollect herself. "And before any of you say anything I have checked all my sources to see if they were affiliated with Laughing Coffin, and to my knowledge, they are not." She sent a furtive glare at Sinon. "In began with a duel, with Lynd and one of their strongest members. He was able to overcome Lynd and the rest of the dragons attack him. Surprisingly he was able to hold off and even kill three of them before the rest of his guildmates helped him out." Argo stated.

"Is there anything known about the player?" Asuna blurted out before Sinon even had a chance to think. Asuna instantly covered her mouth and said sorry with her hands still over her mouth. This of course made Argo chuckled a little as opened her mouth to speak once more. "He is male, amazing skill at unarmed dueling, and an even better left handed spear user. His description looks a lot like you Kazuma." Argo stated as she looked over to the spear user."That's because he's my brother, now if you'll excuse me I need some fresh air." Kazuma made to stand up and leave but Ran beat him to it.

Ran was already halfway to the door by the time Kazuma had stood up, she was obviously distressed. Tsubaki stood up and bowed, saying that she would attempt to bring Ran back as quickly as possible. With that her and Kazuma left. Asuna made to follow Kazuma but Sinon knew better. If she had a brother that was a killer she would need time alone to adjust to the idea. Standing, up Sinon put her hand on Sinon's shoulder and whispered three words in her ear, give him time. Without even looking back at Sinon, Asuna nodded and sat back in her seat. Diavel began to speak again but Sinon didn't listen she was far more intrigued in something else. Besides she knew what her was talking about, Diavel was talking about floor fifty.

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I hope you all like this chapter

Thank you to all of your guy's support, it means a lot!

Next chapters will be up in a week's time

Have a wonderful week!

-Kirk


	146. Trust

October 7, 2023

-Tsubaki and Ran-

"Please tell me what's wrong." Tsubaki pleaded as she finally caught up with Ran. This was quite a feat as she didn't just run out to get some fresh air. No she teleported all the way down to floor one and then she found a landmark. Tsubaki didn't know exactly how she got to the point as Tsubaki was quite a ways behind her but Tsubaki had guessed where Ran would have ran off to. And well though Tsubaki didn't know what had made her run off, she at least knew where she had ran off to.

Ran turned around from the endless sky of the ledge that had earned it's name in the first couple days of the game, it was no a the suicide ledge. It was closest place to the town square that you could kill yourself and within maybe two hours of the game many players did. This was a part of probably one of the worst stories that would come out of Aincrad and yet when Ran was distressed this is where she went to.

Over the ledge there was a boundless sky, it seemed to infinite in every direction away from the ledge. There was a couple of places where Tsubaki could just sit and soak up the scenery and this was one of them. Now however it was practically one of the most breathtaking views she had seen ever. The sunset that was behind Ran bleeding orange and red acrossed the usually blue sky, it was just simply amazing.

"Please tell me." Tsubaki pleaded as she took steps towards Ran. Ran looked at Tsubaki with a long of please don't ask again as she shook her head no. Biting her tongue from making any brash movements Tsubaki wrapped one of her arms around Ran a turned her around to see the streaks of vibrant yellow, orange and red that traversed the sky. Though Ran wasn't much of a person to explore the sight in front of her, Tsubaki still knew that Ran would appreciate it.

"Look at this, even in what we could only call the worst of weeks, the sky still shimmers it's happiness down on to us. Look at the streaks of blue still prevalent in the sky even though it's after seven at night. Look at the blinding lights of yellow, orange, and red casting the last bits of light that we will have. Doesn't it looked amazing?" Tsubaki said as she smiled to Ran, who smiled back with a slight conceal chuckle in the back of her mind.

"You talk as though you've seen this sight a thousand times." Ran said as she put her arm around Tsubaki and looked out to the sky. It had the aura of slight humor around it but the next moments could nothing more that the direct opposite. As though Ran that she had said something bad the air around them had went from the pensive state that Tsubaki had put it in, to something that felt like deep regret or remorse.

Ran opened her mouth to speak but was cut off by Tsubaki before she could even from the first syllable. "Don't worry about offending me, I mean it's not like your life is the easiest, I mean being separated from your twin and best friend. But your right it's as though I have seen a thousand times as it replays in mind whenever a feel sad, I see the places I never dreamt I would see or even get to see." Tsubaki said as she looked upwards the dark shades of blue that had appeared across the sky.

Not even getting to finish her sentence before Ran took action, Tsubaki felt the younger friends head against her shoulder. Tsubaki could feel the trickle of tears fall down her face but thought nothing of it, there was no doubt in her mind this is what Ran needed. A few minutes past with much movement other than the tears falling from Ran's eyes on to Tsubaki's shoulder but then Ran pulled herself away from Tsubaki and held her face directly at her own.

"But my best friend is right her, right now. You'll always be my best friend no matter what, you got that?" Ran said as she pulled Tsubaki into a hug. They lingered there for a moment, maybe a little longer than friends would hug but not as long as lovers would. "Man compared to my problems, you have it hard. I'm sorry about my selfishness. I couldn't imagine having to be in your position." Ran stated with somber air and solitude.

"Don't feel sorry for me now. I've seen things that I would have never imagined I would even get the chance to see. Like this brilliant sunset sunset, or being able to connect the sound of trickling water to how it looks, or standing on top of a huge mountain and seeing everything the lights touches. I wouldn't change it for anything, the experiences that I have seen, I want to keep seeing them, don't feel sorry for me. Even though we are in a death game, I feels like I am in my dream world." Tsubaki stated as she looked at Ran with soft smile.

"You have helped me out more than I could have ever imagined, please allow me to help you out." Tsubaki said as she put her hand on Ran's shoulder. She could see the contemplation in Ran's eyes and she knew that she was seriously considering both actions. "I understand if you don't want to tell me know, but I would like you to tell me eventually, once your okay with it." Tsubaki said as she retracted her arm.

Sometimes it was okay to push you luck to the extremes but in this case Tsubaki didn't want to do it as she would her friend to feel comfortable. But it seemed as that it made it so that Ran wanted to speak now. Tsubaki contemplated telling her to wait but it seemed it would be futiles as that would go against everything they had just worked towards. Mentally preparing herself for what would come next, Tsubaki looked at Ran with a soft look.

"You remember that person I asked you spy on?" Ran asked after taking quite a long breath. With a second of wavering, Tsubaki nodded her head yes. "Well I have been trying to help him out for a while now and every time I thought I was making progress he would put distance between us. And about a month ago I got him to talk to me again and I thought it was step up from what he had been doing, he even made a joke." Ran stated with a mournful smile.

"Why did you try help him out?" Tsubaki asked before she even knew she was speaking. Covering her mouth she made a slight blush as she looked intently at Ran. Ran looked at Tsubaki for a couple moments, obviously trying to find the reason herself. In the time she ran both of her hands through her long hair and even twirled a bit on one of her figures. Then she she crossed her hands in front of her and looked back up at Tsubaki.

"I have seen so many families get broken up and, well he had the same air to him. I guess I wanted him to mend a be whole again. He felt so broken in so many different ways and I couldn't bare to see him like that. But I haven't seen him since a month ago, and he was a left handed spear user, it was him that killed Lynd." Ran spoke the end a lot faster than any other part but she she suddenly slowed down as she said killed.

"Do you think he is a killer?" Tsubaki asked Ran as she held both of her shoulders. Her answer was quite incisive and this made Tsubaki attempt to rephrase her question. "Do you think he could end a life?" Tsubaki asked as she looked softly at Ran. This answer was more decisive and it was a no. "Then as far as we a concerned, it was someone else and not him." Tsubaki said as she brought Ran's head onto her shoulder. "Now come on they're waiting for us back up in the meeting." Tsubaki stated as she patted Ran's head a couple of times then began to bring her back up to the meeting.

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I hope you all enjoyed this chapter!

Thank you to all who have Followed, Favorited, and Reviewed

Next chapter will be up in a few

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	147. Tussle

October 13, 2023

-Kazuma and Zack-

"It was you wasn't it?" There was a tone of obvious denial in the person voice behind him. Without even a fleeting thought, Zack knew who it was just off of instinct, not even having to think or contemplate about it. They had spent the better part of two decades together hand in hand, experiencing the same experiences, and fighting the same battle. Of course all good things came to an end and the end for their relationship as brothers was quelled in the beginning of Sword Art Online phase.

"You did it, how could you..." Kazuma start to speak but his voice trailed off into a still silent heavy with confusion and questions. Zack wanted nothing more than to tell his brother just how naive he was being or to tell him off as he did in the old days. This however was most likely the least helpful option he could choose, though it would give him a fair amount of joying in seeing his brother's reaction he knew what was best. Or at least he knew what was worst.

"And." Zack said curtly as he turned around to face his brother. He wouldn't run away this time, he would face his actions and at least if he ended with his brother for yet another time, he would have had a bit of the action. Unlike his past self, Zack looked directly into his brother's eyes without showing off any fear. Just by looking at his brother he could see that he was trying to comprehend the massive flow of information he had just received. Not only that but he was trying to comprehend Zack's response.

Most of Zack's responses in the most were either curt or done right rude, sometimes he didn't know how he managed it but he could make them both happen. His younger self would talk everything as an insult even if well it wasn't even said towards him or anyone in a hundred mile radius around him. This of course only just changed recently as his younger self basically meant before he joined Laughing Coffin, because joining that guild made you gain twenty years of horror and experience.

"You killed Lynd, how could you do that?" Kazuma asked more reserved than he usually was. While Zack was known for his bluntness and rudeness, Kazuma was extremely well spoken. He often was never at a loss for words and could if needed be, use a bulwark of impressive words, at least in his words. Well no, he used a different word for impressive but even inside Zack's mind it sound pretentious.

"Like you said… I'm a murderer." Zack stated with a certain bite at the end. This bite wasn't made with his voice but with his words. Zack knew they stung Kazuma and they stung him bad. While he had called him a murderer, Zack knew that Kazuma didn't mean it, he had been in a fit a rage and had every right to be mad at Zack. But the continual times afterwards it had hurt Zack and this just was some long overdone payback, revenge is truly a dish best served cold.

"This is…" Kazuma started then bit his tongue back and closed his mouth. He could tell that Kazuma still harbored some feelings from quite a long time ago and Zack never expected them to go away but apparently Kazuma had forgot about them for a fleeting moment. Zack knew what he was about to say from muscle memory but he also had to bite his tongue back from throwing out the wrong words.

"Different, how is this different from last time?" Zack asked as he turned around a looked up at the trees that surrounded him. "Us at Laughing Coffin know that killing someone you know is a lot harder than killing some random person. You should know that too." Zack stated without turning to face Kazuma. The area that Kazuma had found him in would be perfect for a get away and it was extremely dark as it was night and the tree's leaves covered what light the moon could have produced.

"Shut up, you have no right to speak to me like that!" Kazuma finally broke through his clenched teeth. Zack had known that they had been there but was hoping that Kazuma would have been able to hold them for longer. He was reverting back to how he usually was, Zack knew that the reason he had been holding back was to attempt to get some answers from him. This task appeared to be too hard and Kazuma was trying a different approach.

"Your right, I have no right to talk to Kazuma Date, lord and savior of the Date family. I am just a shadow of your shadow." Zack spat at into the ground in front of him. A single tear fell down Zack's face before he wiped it off. But the time for sorrow had passed the time of doing was upon him now. He clenched his fist and closed his eyes and waited for Kazuma to speak again but in his mind he played out all the possible answers he could get from Kazuma's rage.

"You know that's not what this is about." Kazuma said a lot more calmly than Zack had been expected. He was expected either a blow up in one direction or the other but not for Kazuma to hit a solemn note in the middle. But what was it about? This question appeared in his mind but Zack refrained from asking it. Even in his mind he knew that there was to many things that could play into this conversation.

"Then bring it back to the topic on hand, why don't ya." Zack stated as he continued to look up at the large leaves and branches above them. From the sound of crunching branches and fallen leaves he could tell that Kazuma had taken a couple steps towards him, but not much more than a couple. Kazuma let out an audible breath and breath in, whatever he was going to say was going to take him a minute to compile his thoughts.

"How could you join them, they're all a bunch of murderers, worse than you, your just helping them out." Kazuma spat at Zack. Zack could actually feel one of Kazuma's stray droplet of saliva hit his neck. Reaching his hand up, Zack wiped his neck clean with quite sharp movements. He closed his eyes once again and moved the position of his head so that it was looking at his feet. Opening his eyes, Zack saw the same two shoes that he had worn for a year now. What a long time since he had worn something different.

"And." Zack said curtly again as he turned around to face his brother once more. Unlike last time, his face was completely stolid and convey no obvious emotion. He had obviously wanted to be read the last time but he wouldn't let that happen this time. His face was stern, which accented all of his usual soft features and made them exceptional sharp. It was the face of their father, their father which pushed them into their respective path, for go or worse.

"You're were murderer, nothing more, nothing less but now you've inducted yourself into a legion of psychopathic insane killers who won't even think about a moment before attacking. They're without morals and bounds, they're a risk to everyone in Aincrad. "I vow to you and to everyone of you so called 'guildmates', I will make sure that all of you won't make it out of this game, you will pay for your actions and that starts now. Yu, prepare to face the embodiment of karma, me." Kazuma stated as he pointed his spear at Zack and attack his younger brother.

They both fell into a flurry of attacks and Kazuma went into an early lead. Kazuma immediately feel into his defensive stance and movements, but this didn't last for long as Kazuma made a fatal error. He attack with a dangerously slow linear when Zack was prepared and wasn't occupied with the laws of motion. Zack easily redirected it off to his left, leaving Kazuma's left hand to be attack, which Zack took as soon as he the inkling of an opening. With his right hand he karated chopped Kazuma's wrist which made his let go of his spear. With the advantage Zack easily put Kazuma into a position where his shield could no longer block strike then swung at Kazuma's neck, only to stop as the cold blade touched Kazuma's neck.

"You need more practice." Zack stated with a smirk. He let his spear linger for a couple seconds before speaking again. "Like I said, killing someone you know is a lot harder than killing a random person." Zack stated once, more with his deafening smirk stretched across his usual soft face. Once again he let his spear linger for a second before making another action but Kazuma would have much prefered he said another insult or quote. With both of his hands on his spear, Zack rotated his spear so that it skinned Kazuma's necked.

"Go to hell." Kazuma yelled out in disgust once the pain had subsided.

"I already am, I'm left handed." Zack said with a snigger before he ran off.

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AHH brothers

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter!

Next chapters will be out next Sunday

Have a wonderful week.

-Kirk


	148. Talk

October 31, 2023

-Kirito and Diavel-

"It's been awhile." Diavel stated as he looked towards Kirito. Kirito was standing in front of his desk standing perfectly straight and unmoving, a perfect posture for someone about to start an interview. His face was practically stolid but Diavel did see hints of wondering in Kirito's eyes. But if Kirito was wondering something then it was nothing compared to what Diavel had going on in his mind. "What brings you here." Diavel asked he sat up a little more than he had been.

"May I sit?" Kirito asked as he bent his head ever so slightly. Diavel gave a friendly smirk a motioned a yes at Kirito. Taken this, Kirito walked towards the chair opposite with his steps seemingly as though they were on one constant line of even beats. Once he reach the chair, Kirito took off his coat and folded it over the back of the seat then took off his sword sheath a laid it against the side of the chair.

This revealed his completely black tee shirt and his black pants to match. Not even his belt showed an ounce of color. Unlike his coat which had the apparently rare color, that being white, Kirito seemed as though he had no sense in fashion. In addition it also seemed that, A he truly didn't care or B, really likes black. However neither of these options really matter as that was obviously not the topic of what he came here to talk about.

"I have a request to ask of you." Kirito stated with a much softer voice than he had used before. This was said without Kirito even looking anywhere near his face. He was most likely nervous, which wasn't a trait that Diavel would associate with him. I mean he literally just managed to sneak into the base of the biggest guilds in the game undetected, and then he found his way to the second in command's room, again undetected.

"Do tell." Diavel said he positioned the weight of his body forward. He wasn't usually intrigued with the internal fires inside other people but Kirito's seemed incredibly alluring as it seemed as though he was out of character. The usual mental image that Diavel had with Kirito was a do what I want attitude, with the skills to back it up but for him to ask something of someone else, this was practically unheard of.

"Firstly, I have to apologize for leaving the front lines. It was foolish and selfish of me, I regret it." Kirito stated as he bent his head and bowed towards Diavel. He bent his head so far down so that all Diavel could see was the black hair on top of his head and the visage of a nose. Asking a question was one thing but for him to apologize something completely different. It was apparent that Kirito didn't like his actions and was trying to amend or at least take action for them.

"Though I hold no reservations towards you, many other's do, it is them you must apologize to. But first may I ask why you left the front lines?" Diavel asked as as he crossed his hand in front of him. Out of the couple of people who could give him information on this question the other three didn't give him much on this front. Asuna flat out knew nothing and Argo refused to tell him anything and said she'd spread her feces on him if he did. Though a simple no would've sufficed, Argo's reaction told Diavel not to mess with her. Lastly was Sinon, who said one word, don't.

"I needed time, at first I thought I just needed a couple of hours, that turned into a lot longer then I got tied up in something." Kirito stated with a note of sadness and deep thought. But it was just as brief as a passing breeze, if Diavel hadn't been paying soo much attention he would've missed it. But know Sinon's response to his question made sense. She was telling him not to wonder what Kirito was doing, that he knew what he was doing.

"Okay, so what you come here to ask me, I have to say I am intrigued." Diavel stated as he leaned even more forward so that he was literally on the edge of his seat, not to mention figuratively. He made this purposely obvious as he wanted to get to the meat of the conversation without pushing Kirito too hard. Kirito seemed to take notice to this, but he did not change his demeanor what so ever. It was as though he didn't even see a thing.

"I came to ask you two things and the first of which is if I could join the front lines once more?" Kirito asked as he looked Diavel in the eyes for the second time during the conversation. In his eyes there was an obvious overflow of emotion but what the emotion was, Diavel could not decipher. This however did make Diavel believe that he was completely sincere and what to help out once more. And the help would be needed as they're about to try the fiftieth boss battle.

"You don't need to ask to join the front lines, we'll take practically anyone, but why would you ask me?" Diavel asked. In truth he had been wondering this since the creaking sound from the door came to be reveal itself as Kirito. They had no connection with each other of any substantially kind. Their connection was that of acquaintances as they respected each other both asking more of each other.

"That leads me into my second question, or more of an Idea, please hear me out. From what I heard from Argo you had went through a devastating floor twenty five and from her scouting, she tells me that this one will be even harder, even with preparation. While I know you have a plan set in store I have a backup plan." Kirito said timidly, but nevertheless he stared fearlessly at the tank in front of him.

"So you came to me since I oversee all of the all preparation and plans." Diavel stated as he looked at Kirito. After he gulped he gave a much slower nod than Diavel had ever seen anyone do inside the game. "What's your plan then, I would like to hear what you have thought up of." Diavel stated with the slightest bight of hostility. He now understood why Kirito seemed so different and that was because he was doing something he knew would be most likely rejected and yet he sucked up all the courage he had and came.

"This is meant to be a last ditch effort and you don't have to use it if you don't want to, but hear me out. Once all of your resources and strategies are burned up and everyone is worned down almost to the point of no return allow me to confront the boss alone, while everyone else recovers." Kirito said while looking at Diavel even though it was painfully obvious that he did not want to. It was a way of saying he wasn't trying to be overzealous, he just wanted to help out, or at least that's what Diavel though.

"I can't.." Diavel started to speak his flat out refusal of even the thought of that type of plan.

"I am not asking you to say yes to me right now, the decision can be made second before we carry it out, I don't care, I just want to show you another option. Here's my level." Kirito opened up his menu a spun it around at Diavel so he could see it. His eyes widen at the number he saw, Kirito was no doubt the highest level person in the game. " If anyone can do it it's me, and I am not going to let myself shy away from another battle that I could help out in. I understand that you would never let any risk their lives so recklessly but I want to, I want to show my loyalty to this cause, I want show that I won't run away not anymore at least, I want to show that I changed." Kirito finished with his figured pointed at himself.

"You have to make me a promise if I do use your plan then, you'll never leave the front lines again." Diavel stated as he looked at Kirito with no hint of emotion.

"The last time I made a promise I broke, but never again, I can ensure that I will keep this promise for as long as I live." Kirito said as he bowed his head at Diavel.

XXXX

So I'll be releasing eight chapters today since I'll be out of the country for the next three weeks

Apologies in advance for spam

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Have a wonderful day!

-Kirk


	149. Tactic

November 9, 2023

-Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Godfree, Silica, Klein, Heathcliff, Ran, Kazuma, Tsubaki, and Saffi-

Pulling back her bowstring, Sinon tested her aim out for a couple of seconds. Of course there was nothing on the string but she needed to find a way to prepare herself while Heathcliff and Diavel were giving their awe inspiring speeches. Sinon had no inclination to hear these speeches as she had heard them do this about fifty times now and it didn't help that they were all just variations on the same concept, band together and we'll beat this game. Most of the players bought into this and it worked out sometimes, but the other times it was basically a free for all match to see who could piss off the boss the most.

"Why you doing that?" This question came absolutely out of nowhere and let's just say that not expecting it was an understatement. The question made Sinon do a dry shot which scrap her right cheek as it passed by. Sinon's hand instantly went up to her cheek as if touching the irritated skin would make feel it much better. At least she had felt the pain before because if she hated experience the pain of scrap herself with a bowstring she might of cursed, multiple times, in front of someone who was younger than her.

"Just why Silica?" Sinon exclaimed as she glanced down at her younger companion. This was her first boss raid and apparently she payed as much attention to Diavel's and Heathcliff's speeches as she did. Sinon would've thought that Silica would've been interested as it was one of the reasons people came to these raids but Silica seemed different from the others. From what Sinon could observe she was a lot more interested in seeing how Sinon prepared for the raid.

"Why not?" Silica responded with a quite a bit a spring to her words and well her statue. It seemed as her youngest subordinate had the hardest time staying still. But Sinon couldn't blame Silica for acting this way as Sinon would probably not be staying still either. Though for her it maybe from the fact that she was about to die in a couple minutes but for Silica it seemed as though she couldn't contain her excitement.

"Because we are about to go into a free for all deathmatch not jump house fun party." Sinon stated with quite a lot of playful bite to her words. Though she may have used enough bite to make it sound degrading, that was not her intention however. In a contradiction to her cold exterior, Sinon was a least fairly nice, or nice as the average person. No matter what any player says, especially people who have a certain animosity towards sniper class. Even though SAO is buy in large a guild oriented game, there still some players that hate snipers just for sniping and frankly a bow and arrow wasn't much different in their eyes.

"Come on you need to loosen up a bit, you wanna see how I prepare." This to most people would've sound the a question and well it did, but Sinon knew a lot better than to expect that. Silica had a habit of doing now and accepting the fact that she didn't think it through nor ask for permission later. Sinon found this to be one of Silica best defining traits, while it being slightly annoying at times. When they were not doing stuff with the guild it was actually kind of nice but when they were with the guild. Let's just say that Silica was buy in far, the hardest one to train.

With Pina in her hands, Silica took one look at Pina then threw her up into the air, much like a father would do to his newborn child. But the difference between a newborn child and the dragon Pina is that one had wings, Pina had wings. The result was quite humorous if Sinon could say so herself. Silica continued to look up at Pina as though she expected the blue father dragon to fall back down while Pina, oblivious to the events taking place below her, did a somersault in mid air.

"Well that didn't work out." Sinon stated with a chuckled as she shifted her glance from Pina to Silica and back again. This gained Sinon the look of incredulousness from Silica, as if to say, really. The two glared for a moment at each other, no doubt it would have went into the minutes if something hadn't stopped them, or rather someone. Over the heat of their glares at each other, they heard a more feminine voice boom across the sea of players.

"Hello everyone and if you did know already we are standing in front of the Taj Mahal… No these are the doors to the fiftieth floor boss of this wretched game that we call Sword Art Online. I bet you have already heard the banding together remark a thousand times but how about I rehash it in a way that you haven't heard of before. How about we band together not against the monster that lies behind this door but the monster that lies at the end, Kayaba! Let's do this!" Saffi yelled as she raise he currently empty fist into the air.

The doors in front of the massive amount of players were pushed open by Saffi and Heathcliff, the two leaders of the biggest front line guilds. This was in fact the first Saffi had done this as this spot was usually reserved for Lynd as The Holy Dragon Alliance was quite a bit bigger than Storm of Centuries. But what was left of The Holy Dragon Alliance after Laughing Coffin's attack was a bunch of players without any leaders. The guild quickly imploded and most of the players either joined another guild or made their own.

It was this that made the barely forty member guild, Storm of Centuries the second biggest guild. From common knowledge around Aincrad it is known that The Knights of the Blood Oath are made up of approximately one hundred players and The Holy Dragon Alliance hadn't that far behind. But with that guild disbanded it made it so Saffi now had a much larger role in the front lines and this was something she didn't really like all that much. In fact she tried to relegate it of to Sinon but Sinon wasn't having any of that as it wasn't the role she signed up for.

Sinon signed up to lead their players into battle and well that task was also augmented thanks to Laughing Coffin. The Fiftieth boss raid was going to be the largest boss raid in Aincrad's history boasting over twenty member than the largest before it. Surrounding Sinon was just over eight players, all ready to fight the boss and around thirty of those players were Sinon's responsibility. That in itself was about ten more players than Sinon had ever lead into battle.

When Sinon had ask Saffi how many players she would take with her to the boss battle it had practically made her pee her pants. They were taking just about every member that they deemed raid battle ready, which meant that they were in the right mindset, had a high enough level and had some common sense while weren't completely insubordinate. This was partly the reason that Silica was about to go into her first raid battle. Though her level barely scraped by the requirement, her mind set was like no other. She knew how to fight and she knew how to take commands, something that Sinon was most definitely thankful for.

The rest of the eight players were not under her control but she knew the composition of them. The Knights of the Blood Oath had provided most of the tanks, but with that said there was only about twenty tanks which was quite low considering they usually took thirty tanks in the usual raid of sixty people. Other than the long range support provide by Sinon's group and the tanks of Diavel's the rest were a huge culmination of thirty DPS players. About ten of them were courtesy of The Knights of Blood Oath but was it wasn't their strong suit most of the others were from small guilds such as Klein's Fuurinkazan guild.

As the boss doors opened, Sinon took an arrow off her back and loaded it onto her quiver, stretching it ever so slightly. She slowly breathed as she readied herself. Never before had she thought that she would be leading a mass of players, almost all older than her, into battle. It was something that no matter what, seemed different every time, it was exhilarating, something that could never become stale. As Saffi joined the fray, Sinon turned around to face the players before her to give her tiny pep talk.

"You all ready?" Sinon yelled the question. Her voice was far more nervous than it was usually then again all the players in front of her more nervous than she had ever seen them. She heard shouts of yes and hell yeah from the players in front of her. Hearing this, Sinon grabbed the arrow that was loaded onto her bow and raise it into the air, with her fist covering the middle. "Then may your aim be true!" Sinon shouted to all of her subordinates and Saffi. They all raised the random assortment of weapons, from the usually arrows, to the foreign boomerang, to whatever Saffi would wield during this boss battle.

XXXX

Chapter number two of today!

Are you all ready for the fiftieth boss battle

Next chapter will be up in a few

Hope you guys are having a wonderful summer

-Kirk


	150. Punch

November 9, 2023

-Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Godfree, Silica, Klein, Heathcliff, Ran, Kazuma, Tsubaki, and Saffi-

Holding her weapon perfectly straight in front of her, she took a sharp intake of breath. Now she was in the room that she had spent the last couple of weeks preparing for, it was now or never. Lifting her left hand off her handle she raised her weapon so that out of the corner of her eye she saw a streak of silver glint in the dark moon above her. Underneath her was dirt but not any type of dirt, it crunched as she stepped on it. Unlike the ground of forests, it was physically that dirt that was crunching. It was as though they had never gotten rain her, as though the ground was dead, waiting to be rebirthed. Then she allowed her weapon the rest calmly by her side as she watched the boss come out of the shadows and into the hollow moonlight.

The familiar sound of of armor chinks moving echo across the boss room as the boss walked into the streaks of silver lights emanating from the moon. Nothing other than the glint of silver shining from the bosses armors had any sort of color whatsoever. The rest of the attire was completely black and what little she could see of the boss's face was also black. If she was not mistaken the boss at least resembled of human. It had too legs and two arms, both covered in extensive metal armor. The rest of the boss's attire was basically unknown other than some small details.

Since the light in the room was limited there wasn't much to make out of the designs that would most likely cover the boss's torso. But it was apparent the the boss's had on a hood, that most closely resemble that of reaper's hood. It was unsettling but it was nothing compared to the sword that rested in the boss's right hand. The hilt was something fierce, even without all of it's other characteristics it would still make the sword a master piece. It was obviously made out of some type of metal, but without a closer look it was only clear that it wasn't the same medal as the boss's armor. All she could see of the handle was that it was longer than that of a usual one handed sword, it was most likely a long sword.

But then her thought was caught short as the boss reenacted it's opening cutscene. She had seen it once before of course but even if she knew that everything in front of her could kill her, it was a beauty to watch. The boss raised her sword into the air with one hand and moved it into the moonlight. As soon as it touch the moonlight, it started to glow purple or at least the blade did. Then the boss flipped the blade downwards so that it's blade pointed towards the rotten ground, and she plunged it into the earth. Immediately upon doing so, all the cracks and tiny crevices in the ground start to glow purple and started to slowly open. At last the last bit of the cutscene was shown to all the players, the boss's health bar appeared to show the boss's name, Alesha, who reincarnates fear.

"Prepare yourselves, skeletons will start crawling out of the ground in the dozens, their attacks are weak all you have to do is remember not to let them overwhelm you. Now with that said, Begin plan A." Asuna yelled to all of the DPS players. In front of her were the tanks and behind her were the supports and beside her were her allies. Raising her silver rapier in front of her, Asuna readied herself then kicked off from the ground and start to run into what she called, the graveyard.

Plan A was basically their base plan and it was the plan that was most flexible and the one that everyone agreed would work, only if it may take a while. Basically all the DPS units did was nearest skeletons and allow the tanks to slowly move forward without having to deal with being overwhelm. This of course would let the DPS players be easily overwhelm but that's what the support units were for. Apart from all of the healers, the long range support players were there to take out skeletons that were advancing, basically the ones who hadn't join the fray yet. IT would make Asuna's job a lot easily basically.

Asuna was the first to break past the line of tanks and see the utterly stupid amount of skeletons Alesha had already summoned. There may have been a hundred, there may have been three hundred, all that Asuna knew was that she could even see the purple glow of Alesha's sword. Asuna easily cleaved one of the skeleton's heads off the proceeded to chopping off all of its limbs. While this personally seemed a little to torture as the limbs literally twitched in agony, it was necessary. One of the most important things they had learned from scouting was that even though you could take off everything but one arm, it could still attempt to attack. Each one had to be taken out and made sure it was down for good. In addition to that the skeletons were quite menacing as they didn't have hands or forearms. Instead they had short pikes, excellent for taking down foes and this is what made them so dangerous. Their body was weapon, so that couldn't be disarmed

By the time she had lifted her head up, all the other players had broken through the line of tanks and were slowly taking out the skeletons. Most of the players had done just as Asuna had done and the few who weren't were occupied by other skeletons. Asuna took it upon herself to help out those players as she wouldn't let them die because they had simply walked into more skeletons then everyone else. Quickly taking out the nearest skeletons, Asuna sprinted to the closest player who was in a pickle.

After taking out two of the skeletons near the player she ran off to help another player without even a single word. As she ran to the other player she was momentarily impeded by one of Alesha's attacks. During the scouting mission she had only seen the boss do it once but it was an extremely dangerous attack. Alesha's sword could do more things than necromancery, it could she bolts of purple light out from it's blade. This purple light, Asuna's was sure it was a one hit kill move and the other other time she had seen used, it had nearly knocked Diavel off his feet, and it had hit his shield.

This bolt barely missed her, if she had been going at her usual speed she would have been toast but the bolt only manage to come centimeters away from trimming her eyebrows. Asuna immediately jumped back and unsteadily land on her two feet about a meter away from where the bolt had been shot at. She only turned just in time to the next purple bolt come within centimeters of her head once again. Only if the boss had good aim, she would've been hit but, she was unscathed for the current moment.

Alesha continued to fire bolt after bolt at Asuna who continued to dodge. The bolts weren't the fastest things in the world, they were meant to catch the player off guard and kill them, not to be the main source of attacks. This gave Asuna confidence, the boss tactics would not work, but then she realised what the boss was doing, only too late. While Asuna had been busy dodging the purple bolts a culmination of skeletons now surround her and were attacking her.

Keeping her eyes towards the boss, Asuna started to slowly dispatch the skeletons while dodging the boss's bolts. She knew this couldn't go on forever but she would have to stall until help arrived. But before help could arrive she saw a bolt come at her, one that was aimed to perfectly for her to dodge. Without even thinking, she reverted back to her youth and used her rapier as a softball bat, and the bolt was a ball.

This did not go over well as the bolt hit with a lot more force than a eight year olds softball pitch. As soon as her rapier hit the bolt she knew it was a bad idea as she could feel the rapier being flung out of her hand and onto the ground just a couple of meters behind her. Armed with only her fist, Asuna punched one of the skeletons in the chest and shoved it back, breaking a couple of ribs in the process.

Now she took her chance to run over to her sword and pick it up. Sprinting as fast as possible, at least for her standards, she ran almost all of the way to her rapier but was stopped short by two skeletons. She punched one and knocked it off it's feet but the second was too fast and took the opportunity to strike. This skeleton was cut short by an arrow piercing directly through it's skull and lodging itself. While this did not kill the skeleton, it merely stunned which allowed as the chance to punch, this time in the rib cage, was presented to Asuna.

She took this opportunity of course but her victory was cut short by a hint of purple she caught out of the corner of her eye. Again, without even taking a millisecond to think, Asuna dropped to the ground and allowed the purple bolt to pass overhead of her and into the players behind her. Asuna's eyes traced the bolt until it hit one of the shield users. The shield blocked it with their shield but the force of the bolt knocked the player into the air and back onto the ground, which took out over fifty percent of the players health.

Asuna look back towards the boss to see where it would fire next but the boss seem to doing something else. It seemed to Asuna that the boss was calling all of it's skeleton's to one spot and it was. While Asuna may have been surrounded by skeletons, most of the other players had dealt with theirs, and we heading towards the boss. This of course trigger a response to happen and the boss took action.

All of the players watched as all of the skeleton's bones, not matter if they were still intact or not came together at one spot to join in one massive pile of bones. Then the bones started to take shape into what seemed to be a golem of bones. If anything it reminded Asuna of the zombie giant they had faced soo long ago. Standing between them and Alesha was a golem made up of all the bones Alesha had managed to summon, and all of the skeletons the players had managed to slay.

XXXX

Well here's asuna chapter for the boss fight

Hope you all enjoyed it

Fourth chapter today will be up in a few

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	151. Picture

November 9, 2023

-Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Godfree, Silica, Klein, Heathcliff, Ran, Kazuma, Tsubaki, and Saffi-

Her eyes bulged outwards. This was it, the reason why she was here, there reason she was one of the most coveted members of the front lines was in front of her. Ran held her breath as she examined the huge bone golem in front of her and the rest of the players. They haven't even touched the boss and already the boss had done something that was unprecedented, this boss was something. Closing her eyes, Ran's mind started to revolve on all cylinders

Somehow she needed to find a way to take care of the large golem in front of her, and she needed to do this in the matter of minutes. That was how much time that they could buy her with physically tiring themselves. Thinking past to past battles, Ran delved further into her thoughts while Diavel started to yell commands to all of the players. He would set them up in such a position so that they could defend for a long amount of time.

Ran opened her eyes to look over at Tsubaki, who was also in deep thought but unlike her she had kept her eyes open. This however didn't serve to help Ran was it seemed Tsubaki to be no closer to figuring out the solution to than she was. Desperately she looked over at Saffi, who was completely oblivious to the fact that Ran was quietly asking for her help. Ran did this again with both Asuna and Sinon but to no avail. Both of them were caught up in ordering all of their subordinates around. She would've have looked at Heathcliff but she knew he had next to no ideas on what to do. There was a lot of things that man could do but strategy wasn't one of them.

Covering her face in her hands, Ran knew that she couldn't be blanking right now, if there was a time and a place for brain farts it certainly wasn't in the middle of boss raid. She would've much rather it happened during an exam, at least then she would've only be affecting her life, and not everyone else's. Well if she wasn't able to fabricate a plan then she might as well fight. Ran's hand grasped her short sword that had been sheathed during the entire boss raid and started to pull it out before she suddenly stopped.

It was as if her brain hit a brick wall when Ran remembered something. This certainly wasn't the first time they had faced a golem, in fact they had faced three others, a clay one, a mud one and an ice one. They had faced all three of them back at floor twenty five and it was fitting that they face yet another golem on floor fity. All of the strategies from floor twenty five weren't all that good, they had lost quite a few members, no she would have to delve even further back to find one that would work.

Thankfully, all the golems were boss's of earlies floors, in the clay golem's case, much earlier. The first one that she could bring back to her memory was that of the mud golem's demise. This was most likely because of the fact that a player had died during that raid but Ran couldn't remember the specifics behind that raid either. Ice golem came next to her memory but it didn't provide anything specific as that just brute forced their way through that raid also. That left with the clay golem, and that was one fight that she hadn't been at and neither had Tsubaki.

There was no one near her except for Saffi. She, unlike the rest of the ranged support had continued to attack from quite a distance away while the others had moved closer to have better aim. "Saffi, were you there at the clay golem boss raid?" Ran asked hoping that she had been. This was a total shot in the dark it better work as if it didn't then she didn't know what to do. Saffi yelled as loud she could that she had been there at the boss battle. This was all that Ran wanted, she wanted to know exactly how they had taken out that boss. "Come here." Ran shouted as she started to jog towards Saffi, they met somewhere in the middle. "How did you take down that boss?" Ran asked, trying not to sound too desperate.

"We knocked it to the ground." Saffi said it like it meant nothing to her, but Ran's eyes lit up. This was why no one ever really spoke of that battle. It must have been a battle with any deaths of hardship. Though they all prayed for an easy boss battle they all knew that it would never happen as if it was easy then no one would remember it. It was perfect, just what Ran had needed, a tried and true way of taking down one of the games golems.

Ran observed that boss for a couple of moments and noticed a few choice characteristics. First of all like all of the other undead in the game, it didn't not flinch at all, nor did it seem like it felt pain. This of course made it's attacks instantly harder to stop. Secondly was that it was painfully slow. Most of it's attack's focused on raw power rather than being placed well or accurately for that matter. And lastly, it had nothing protecting it's head other than it's arms. If Ran could get a player into that pocket, then she would bet her life savings that they could knock the golem to the ground.

"Tell everyone to try to knock it over." Ran said curtly to Saffi as she ran off towards that crowd of players now surrounding the golem. With just a little assistance from the other players, Ran bet she could get up to the golem's head and tip it's balance. It was risky but she knew it could be done, and she knew exactly how she would attempt to do it. Ran could have taken the time to tell a more skilled player but she was confident that she could do it.

Once Ran neared to circle of players she slowed down, she would need two things to get up to the boss's head, well three. One is that she would need an opening. Those weren't hard to find as most of the golem's attacks were incredibly task in nature and left him susceptible to attacks. The only reason he was still alive was probably due to his high defense and health. The second one that she would need it a stepping stone. Any player would suffice for this job but Ran would want a bulkier player as it would allow her to have a more secure kicking off point. Lastly, she would need to be fearless, or she would need that ability to not have fear. The last of course was always the hardest.

"Dale, take a knee." She had found at least two of the three. There was an opening, and while Dale wasn't the bulkiest of players, she could do a lot worse. But before she could successfully use a player as a launch pad she was cut of by the sound of quick a intense movement coming from her left. To her left was a lot of players, but most notably was the boss, and even before she could turn to look Ran had guessed why the players had moved so fast.

Abandoning her plan to attack the golem, Ran dived towards the ground and finally unsheathed her blade. As the purple bolt passed her quite aching body, Ran pushed up and got back on her feet. She swung her short sword and faced the boss right as she was about to fire another purple bolt at Ran. The fact that Ran was looking at her did not deteriorate the boss and the boss just shot it at her. Taking a stab into the unknown, instead of dodging out of the way of it Ram jerk her sword upwards in order, she hoped to cut it in half.

Upon seeing Asuna disarmed with this attack, Ran theorized that the strike did have intense strength to it but it was not enough to disarm you if you were ready for it. Luckily she was right, Ran had thought that since at the time Asuna only had her blade in one of her hands and that fact the wielded a rapier made it so she was disarmed. Ran was proven correct as though she could feel the tug of force against her blade, it wouldn't be able to disarm arm her any time soon.

"Godfree, take a knee!" Ran shouted as she ran at Godfree. Seconds before they made impact, Godfree got into position and as soon as his knee touched the ground Ran's foot was on his back and she kicked off, rather hard. She would have to apologize to Godfree in the future but she knew that he would understand why she had done it. The effect was everything Ran could've hoped for and more, Ran flew up past both of the golem's arms and into the air above.

She had overestimated the height at which she would fly but no matter, it was better to overestimate that to underestimate. Right as she reach the point where the golem's head was horizontal, she activated one of the many movement skills, this one in particular shot her forward with incredible force. Ran land on the side of the golem's head sword first but surprisingly it didn't fall down. However she could tell that she had knocked it off balance so she knew she would have to act fast if she was to take advantage of this fact. Placing both of her feet on the golem's head she kicked off, this combined with the efforts of the other players made the golem fall the to the ground and burst into shards and shards a bones the scattered themselves all of the place.

The next thing she knew she had hit the ground with a surprisingly hard thud and she thought that there would be a round of applause. Whenever Tsubaki did it there was a round of applause but it seemed that the players were to preoccupied by something else to notice. After making she that she hadn't damaged her clothes to severely, Ran stood up and looked at what all the other players had deemed more important than catching their savior. Running towards them was a horde of skeletons, nothing like they had faced the first time, no it was at least five times the amount if not more.

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Ahhh, this boss is fun

Hope you all enjoyed Ran's chapter

Next chapter will up in a few

Have a fantastic week

-Kirk


	152. Purpose

November 9, 2023

-Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Godfree, Silica, Klein, Heathcliff, Ran, Kazuma, Tsubaki, and Saffi-

He felt the other players around him start to freeze up. Slowly he felt him start to freeze up to but even he let himself follow in their footsteps, then they all would be truly doomed after all. This would not happen under his watch again, he vowed to himself that he would not let something like that happen again, they would beat this boss if it was the last thing he did. His fist was clenched over his sword so tightly, that if he took his eyes away from the approaching horde of skeletons, he would see a vein covered hand.

Maybe it was time to use his ace, no he would not submit to his last resort just yet. None of them were tried yet, no matter how much they tried to fake it. There was no doubt in his mind that Tsubaki and Ran wouldn't have a strategy for taken on this many enemies. He knew, maybe more than anyone that their strengths lie in dueling and theorizing. This made them incredible when facing enemies that had a weakness but not an entire horde of skeletons, that other than being incredible frale, had no weaknesses what so ever.

"Tanks form a border, do not let a single skeleton cross it!" Diavel yelled his order. There was nothing else to do then let them come to them. Under no circumstance could they be overwhelmed by the amass of skeletons coming towards them. Their only chance was to take out the horde piece by piece, attack them head on would no doubt lead to suicide. From his command all of the other tanks took his lead, holding their shields close to them, and standing completely straight.

One by one as the skeleton horde grew closer he felt his subordinates start to shake. Truth be told he felt the sensation start to form from his body to but he instantly extinguished it. If submitted to it then his subordinates would feel even more uneasy. Biting his tongue, Diavel bent his knees and hend his shield up so that all the revealed to the skeletons was his hair and a pair of eyes. He pulled his sword back and up so it would be ready to strike at a moment's notice.

As each one of his fellow tanks followed in suit, he heard both Asuna and Sinon yelled their commands to their subordinates. Each one did as he had suspected to do. The DPS players were instructed to go in front of the tanks and filter out most of the skeletons out before they got to the tanks, but not go out to far. Sinon told her fellow guildmates to always be firing. The priorities were to keep the other players safe but if they didn't have a target to do so they were instructed to fire into the crowd of skeletons.

But as the skeletons approached they did something that would their assault a hundreds times more effective, something that Diavel would've wished he knew. The first two rows of skeletons, which was to say about fifty, lunge at the once they were closer enough to jump towards them but not to attack or be attacked yet. Each skeleton lunged at them the same as the one next to them, as if they were one single entity. Each skeleton had it's arm pikes stretched out in front of it and look as if they were about to dive into a pool, except the pool was a bunch of players in front of them.

Of the two coming at Diavel the first one bounce up and over his shield landing crumpled alive him but still very much dangerous. The second had a fate that deemed it to death or whatever the substitute for death they got. It first got a horizontal then it got a vertical almost immediately afterwards If you were to line up the four pieces of the skeleton's body it would form a perfect cross. This however was not a thought that crossed Diavel's head as he moore pressing matters to attend to, like skeleton behind him who would most certainly take off his legs if he waited any longer.

Diavel spun around as fast as he could but as he turned around he realized the skeleton was already standing. He allowed one of the skeleton's attacks to bounce off his shield and then attack the skeleton with a vertical. The vertical was a little off center however the effect was nearly the same with the small exception that he felt each and every rib break as his sword passed through them. This result in the skeleton losing one of it's arms and legs and becoming every mad at Diavel. In retaliation it attacked Diavel with its remaining arm or at least it tried to as it's torso was separated from its legs before it could get off the attack. As it crumpled to the ground for good Diavel turned around right in time to see yet another skeleton attack him.

Truth be told the skeletons in front of him weren't all that difficult to take out, like most undead in the game. Two slashes, as long as they make it so the arms weren't attached to anything to extreme. If they were attached to part of the torso they can't move so as long as you don't give a head or legs, they're pretty much dead or deader. However what worried Diavel was the fact that they were right on top of him when he turned around. If he had been just a second later than he would've been hit with an attack, then how would the others fare.

Suddenly he felt a hand touch his shoulder, the hand was rough obviously masculine and would most likely be from a male. As he turned his head he saw that the hand was covered in a skin tight black glove, a fingerless black glove. He knew exactly who it was though he still turned his head to face him. Though Diavel couldn't see his face his attire was enough for him to conclude who it was. Dressed in completely black, with a hood to conceal his face was the black swordsman.

"Just shout it out." His voice was barely audible but yet he heard it. With that he ran off to help out the other DPS units. Diavel tracked his movements for a couple of fleeting moments then then stop after he had taken out his third skeleton. Maybe he would have to use his escape route but not yet at least, not until their were worn down. Surveying the rest of the tanks he found that indeed some of them were having trouble but what confused Diavel is why certain ones were having troubles but not others.

All of the tanks were from his guild and knew all of their strengths probably better than the back of his hand. However the players that he would have expected to be having troubles weren't having as much trouble as the middle of the road players. The average players were seeming to have quite a hard time as they were surrounded and had broken formation and were falling back. This may be true for the for less skillful players but they weren't quite at the extent some of their more skillful guildmates. And then out of nowhere he saw the reason for this.

A purple bolt streaked across the room and contacted one of the player's shield. This resulted in the player being completely taken into the air and knocked back a couple of paces. By the time he had gotten up about ten skeletons surrounded him and were attacking him all at the same time. It was all the player could do to keep the skeleton's from hitting him. This was the reason why some players were falling to bad situations and not others.

Alesha was no doubt extremely smart as she picked out the players least likely to be overwhelmed by the rush of skeletons but the players who could be overwhelm by her attacks. Already about five players had broken formation and the rest were falling way to fast for Diavel to feel okay. It was a fourth of their line that had broken off and they hadn't even made it through half of the skeleton's advancing on them.

Diavel took out some of the skeleton's near him and ran over to where Kirito was currently dispatch a skeleton. Unlike the Kirito he remember, he was using short movements and quick steps to keep the skeleton from attacking but to also keep up momentum. However, then something changed drastically, it was as if he had seen an opening. Kirito attacks soon became intense and had all of the beaters strength put into them. Only with three of these attacks, he took at the skeleton with ease.

"Kirito, take the boss out of the equation." Diavel said but in his mind it came out as a plea. They needed some space and the boss was creating panic and destroying any structure that they once had. He need that with the boss's rain of purple bolts they could reform the line of tanks that they had once form so perfectly. Kirito looked up at Diavel and there eye's meet for the briefest of seconds. Diavel's pale blue meet the darkness of Kirito's black but yet somehow they seemed just as calm as anything. With a short nod Kirito was off.

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And here it comes, Kirito's return

Hope you all liked this chapter

Next chapter will be out in a few

Have a splendid day?

-Kirk


	153. Pain

November 9, 2023

-Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Godfree, Silica, Klein, Heathcliff, Ran, Kazuma, Tsubaki, and Saffi-

His fist tightly clutching a sword his other hand laying open yet restless on his left. Now his time hand come, the reason he had joined the front lines after he had effectively left them for good. Kirito knew what he was about to get himself into and he couldn't help but to prepare himself. Without a doubt all of the beater hater's in the front lines would hate even more than they already did, which in itself is a feat, but he was also coming back to people he hadn't talked to in months, people that he left with even so much as a good bye.

Hood still concealing his face, Kirito turned towards the amass of skeletons in front of him. These enemies that were in front of him, this was what every other player would have to take down, and there was no doubt that if Kirito didn't play his part then they would have to take down a lot more than just the ones in front of them. Kirito almost envied them, they were going to have a much easier battle than he was, then again he actually signed up to one versus one the boss so he couldn't complain one bit.

Closing his eyes for a brief second, Kirito thought about what his next actions were to be and the route he would take not to well, die. Though he would not personally have to deal with the monstrosity that is the skeletons that were convening in front of him, he would need to get pass them. Waiting for the numbers to slim down would taking to long and he knew that if he spent too much time stationary someone might die. Kirito did not have a plan but he did have sword, a pretty good one at that, that was all he needed

Kirito was never one for much strategy, he basically went on the line of thought of improvising while you did it. While this wasn't exactly the best mindset for chess, it honestly suited him perfectly. But needless to say it was probably the most reckless form a thinking anyone could imagine. That is what he needed right now, reckless and stupid actions without thought yet fearless at the same time. He rotated his blade so that the cold steel framed his arm, and without even the inkling that he was going to run, Kirito opened his eyes and took off in a sprint.

It was times like these that he wished he had the speed that Asuna and some others had but alas Kirito doesn't have anywhere near the speed to match them, at least not anymore. Quick footing, that was all he needed, just dodge the attacks and keep on moving, if you never stop they can never catch you, right? Well that was the code that Kirito was following right now, as he used his sure footing to stay out of the way of the majority of skeletons. Thankfully that didn't have all that much reach so weaving out of the way wasn't all that difficult thought once he got near the end it start to get difficult.

Almost all of the way through and the boss had now seemed to notice Kirito. He would consider himself lucky he hadn't had a bolt of purple lightning shot at him. Barely able to fade the right in time, he had lost the little momentum he had gain and was quickly surrounded by a herde of skeletons. He had to think fast. Think! There was no way he could take on twenty skeletons and the boss's bolts and one time, he needed to escape. He was surrounded from all sides and it's not like he could turn into a mole, so he took the one route still upon, the sky.

Kicking off from the ground, Kirito soared through the air and realised he still had one enemy to face in the cool breezes of air flowing through his hair, Alesha's magic. There was only one think he could possibly do, brute strength his way through, and it's not he didn't know it would work. Ran had already shown him that it would work, now all he had to do was to be stupid enough to follow in her footsteps. While in midair, Kirito swung his sword at the purple bolt of magic that was approaching him and the most mysterious thing happen. Instead of merely slicing the bolt in two, he completely broke it, making it shatter in a million purple fragments that blocked Kirito's vision.

But Kirito landed on the ground without a hiccup and he even landed on both of his feet. Not even caring about the twenty or so skeletons who were going to attack him at any moment, Kirito to off in a blazing sprint at Alesha, sword out and ready. Retracting sword back from her firing position, Alesha readied her sword and took off at a sprint towards Kirito, obviously hoping to stop him in his tracks. This did not happen as they met in the middle, their swords colliding against each other.

The effect of this collision was unlike anything Kirito would have ever dreamt it to be. Echoing from the two swords colliding, was the sound very much like a gong that was emitted into the boss room, let's just say anyone who hadn't noticed a cloaked player run to fight the boss had addition to that he literally felt the air around them push in all directions from the force of their two swords. If he had not tied his hood so that it wouldn't fall down, it would've most certainly done it more than once by now. Lastly and the only one that Kirito actually cared about was the strength of Alesha's blow, it literally made Kirito stagger.

From that one blow, one thing had been made to Kirito, what he thought he had in spades, the boss had worlds. The strength that Alesha had just used against him made Kirito worry, if he can't stand a blow from her, then who can? But that was neither here nor there, he was the one facing her not someone else, unfortunately. Kirito retracted himself immediately in a want to escape from the impending doom that was in front of him, but this didn't bod over well as that seemed to be the last thing the boss wanted.

In front of his nose was the boss's incredible blade that nearly cleaved him straight in half. This attack was thrown out at farther distance which did give Kirito time to actually put a reasonable distance, compared to what he had last time. Using this time Kirito fell back into a stance that he was comfortable with a went to strike again but was once again cut off. Alesha was hell bent on always being in control and well that made so that if Kirito wanted to start a flurry of strikes he would have to disrupt one of hers.

And that was what he was going to do. All he need to do now was to find an attack to cut off that isn't as strong as all the others. This however, was not an easy task as he didn't get a second to breath as he kept having to sidestep, fade and jump over strikes that Alesha was sending him. The speed at which she was attacking was faster than Kirito's but not so much so. If he had to guess it was the weight of the sword that made it this way as everything else was pretty damn fast.

Then he saw it, an attack that wasn't as strong as all the others, it was no doubt stronger than most attack's he could muster but at least could attempt to match with his strongest. Kirito responded with incredible force, so much so that Alesha was taken off guard, she had not been expecting this, or that was what he thought as he face was covered in a mask. The attack was taxing on Kirito but he could not bare for it not to be, he had to push himself to his limits if he was going to cut down this boss.

Kirito rushed into flurry of unplanned attacks. All of them were short but incredibly strong for the time being, at least for Kirito's sake. They weren't meant to get passed the glowing purple sword in Alesha's, they were meant to keep her from attacking again. And if they were unplanned and didn't have a rhythm or reason then she would have a hard time coming up with an adequate counter attack. Or at least that was what he thought until Alesha seeming as though she had enough and attack him with such force that his sword wasn't able to block it.

His merely flew out of the way and made a path for Alesha sword to attack from, a path ending in Kirito's left forearm. The next thing he knew was extreme pain, so much so that he screamed out in pain but, he did still keep his sanity and he back the hell away from the boss. With his sword in his hand, Kirito back away until he had about a couple meters between them. He had been surprised he been able to do this but it seemed as though the boss had a different plan in mind now.

If he could see the boss's face it undoubtedly be a smirk as she face holding her sword off to one side pointed towards him, as if she wanted him to attack first. Kirito couldn't feel his left hand, if he had even waited little bit long to back away his hand would have been detached from his body. Conversely the pain in his forearm was blinding him from all rationally thinking if he could've attack in that moment he would have and that was the only emotion that coursed through Kirito's body, revenge.

Only if he had been smart he would've back off but Kirito didn't play smart, he wasn't some bibliophile, no he was a hero and was going to take down the villain in front of him. Slow walking at first with his sword lazy at his side, Kirito edged his way closer and closer until he couldn't take it any more. His mind was telling him to run back the other way but the pain brought from his arm was telling him to run faster. This happen until Kirito broken into a mad sprint at the boss for a second time.

Once the Kirito was within range the boss responded with a downwards vertically which, if Kirito would've paid attention would've had all of the boss's power put into it. This however didn't matter to Kirito as he just threw up his sword with no regards to and knock the boss's sword upwards and out of the way and went in for a strike. But he didn't get to go for it as even though he didn't have his brain working at the moment there was no way he was getting passed the boss's the defense's that easy. Using his quick footing Kirito dodged an attack he predicted, another downwards vertical that would've killed him.

First rule of swordplay, dodge your enemies attacks. Kirito took this one into account and used it's effects to the maximum potential. Utilizing the quick footing and sure placing that he had built up over the last couple of months, Kirito continuously dodged lethal attacks, albeit rather closely. If neither of them hand swords it would've have look like dancing, although it would have been weird that never so much as laid a finger on each other.

Second rule of swordplay, never block, always deflect. Kirito used this one to great effect as he kept his momentum up while he slowly slow down his opponents. All of her attacks that actually connected with something Kirito merely stopped their momentum without stopping his own. The effect though Kirito could not see it was that he was moving a lot faster than Alesha could muster. Even the movements of his feet outpaced the boss now.

Last rule of swordplay, your opponent is not the person, it's the sword. To be honest Kirito didn't know how he was managing. He could barely see as the pain of his arm distorted most of his senses until he realised that he was attacked twice, maybe even three times faster than Alesha. He did not realise this until he knocked her sword out of her hand and then his next attack knocked it out of the picture. Kirito looked at his opponent and a grin crossed his face, he won the sword fight.

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Kirito may be up to the power level he had in the canon lol, also Longest Chapter?

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter will be out shortly

To the next life!

-Kirk


	154. Power

November 9, 2023

-Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Godfree, Silica, Klein, Heathcliff, Ran, Kazuma, Tsubaki, and Saffi-

Kirito thought of backing away from the boss as she would obviously go through some sort of transformation but he didn't have to as she did it first. Backing away with speed that Kirito didn't know that she had, Alesha easily put more meters than was necessary between them. While Alesha did this, Kirito to snuck a peek back at the other players. Gone was the horde of skeleton and what replaced them were three of the skeleton golems, each one about two times the size of the last one. Two of them had quite a decent amount of players surrounding them while the other was facing only one player, a shield user to be exact. Since he didn't want to take his eyes of Alesha for too long, Kirito didn't know who was taking on that golem by themself.

With the pain of his forearm still blinding him, Kirito turned around to face the boss and saw he with her arms raised in the air as if she were saying that there was nothing in her hands. The next thing Kirito saw he wasn't exactly sure was happening until the end of it. Kirito thought he maybe be slipping into the realm of being uncious but this was in fact proven wrong as the very pain that made him barely able to stay upright, told him that he was very much still awake much to his dismay.

The boss's hands started to glow a deep red, the time of red that would be associated with blood and not that cartoon crap, the kind you see in real life. Then Alesha closed both of her hands and all of the heavy armor she had been wearing fell off with probably the loudest clang a metal in the boss room yet. It was loud enough to leaving a ringing noise in Kirito's head but this was the last thing he had to worry about. Now after all of the armor the boss had been wearing fell off, Kirito could finally see his opponent for the first time.

Now this was the part that made Kirito think he was hallucinating as he could see any skin, like none what so ever, he couldn't even see her eyes. Instead of eyes she had sockets where eyes should've have been and probably at one time had been through that time had long past. There were also various other parts of her body that that she was missing like her bottom jaw and the small bone of her lower right leg. Kirito could see of all the broken and missing bones thanks to a little thing call, she had no skin or organs for that matter. However, there was another thing out of place, Alesha had three spines.

This was explained almost at once in a way that made Kirito want to spines to stay where they were at, even if it was by its very definition unnatural. Alesha reached down to where her open midriff area was, an area that should have been covered with much needed organs and grabbed on to the boss of the two outside spinal cords. Acting as though she was taking a breath in, Alesha expanded her chest and ripped out both of the spinal cords with a loud crunch of bones obviously breaking. She brandish the two spines for a couple amounts until she ended with her right one pointing directly at Kirito while her left was held lazily down by her side in the opposite direction.

Apparently, much to Kirito's dismay, the sword fight was not over the second part was just about to commence and this would prove to be more difficult, at least that what usually happen in Sword Art Online. Wincing at the pain emanating from his arm Kirito raised his sword up horizontally to his hand and fell in his stance. The adrenaline that had kicked in to fight through the pain when he had disarmed Alesha was now gone and Kirito felt the full force of his would be bleeding arm hit him.

Full force of everything hit him at once as Alesha ran at him. His arm was screaming out for him to drink a health potion while his mind was screaming for him to run away. Yet he remained ever changed as the two ideals fought with his third ideal, to see the fight through. He wasn't a coward, he didn't return to the front lines just to run away after one silly duel. The odds may be stacked against him but that does not mean he couldn't win. All he had to do was squeeze all of his power out, use all of his potential to match the boss's power and skill.

Kirito brought his sword down into a more comfortable position and then started to run at the boss with all of the speed that he still had left in his arsenal. Just like the first time, neither of them faded away and they merged in the center with one clash of swords, or sword and spine in this case. The power was most certainly there from last time however, Alesha did not have the dangerous amount of power that she had once possessed though she obviously had lost this power for a good case.

Now that Kirito could match her strength her speed was something else, the rate of her attacks was above even that of Asuna's. That is what made Kirito loss the ground that he gainedin his run this time, while he may above able to stand one of her strikes, standing several was just not something that he could do. No longer did their clash of weapons emit loud and echo bangs but the emitted vibrations through Kirito's sword and throughout his whole entire body. This made his already throbbing arm hurt even more, like that was even possible.

Knowing that he couldn't stand to duel Alesha head on, Kirito tried once again to break up the contest of strikes but like all the times before had, this attempt had failed. Alesha, with her increased speed and agility was now able to keep a much large range of control over Kirito. This prevent Kirito from breaking away and only her to keep up a steady stream of attacks. Kirito tried his best to defend against all of her attacks but every once and while he got clipped.

One was a cheap shot taken at his foot that was way to far out and Kirito should have known better than to leave it out. This one didn't leave any lasting damage or particularly hurt but it warned of what's to come. His upper right should had been hit when Kirito had underestimate a strikes power and didn't adequately defend against it. Every time he lift his arm above his head he got an instant shot of pain, she had hit a muscle with that hit. Two others had hit his legs but they were not much of note as if Kirito hadn't seen them he would've never felt them.

Two of them hit his left forearm and these to were by far the worst, at least for now. As soon as the pain from his arm had just started to seem like it may eventually be bearable, it was reopened and this time it hurt like nothing he had ever experienced before at least physically. This was only multiplied by what every number Kirito could think of when it was hit a second time. It was like some broken his leg then forced him to run a marathon. Kirito would like nothing more fall down and aleve the pain but he need to keep on trucking.

But you didn't get a medal for running part of a marathon, no only once you finished would you get the joy of being patted on the back. Kirito continued to fight on through but it seemed as there was nothing he could do to gain ground. Another strike past his head, barely making a lethal attack and cut the right side of his hood making it fall off his head, Kirito didn't notice this at all. What he did notice however was the next attack that Alesha fabricated. Like many of their recent attacks their blades crossed but this time they were more vertically than they had ever been. Alesha had seemed to take this into account and slid her spine done his blade till it shaved to top of Kirito's fingers.

This instantaneously made Kirito activate one of his sword skills , there very skills he had been avoiding all throughout the battle. To be fair this one was probably one of the best he could've used at the time and Kirito wondered why he had thought of it before. Kirito ended up blaming his messed up forearm. The sword skill made Kirito spin in a complete three sixty with his sword stretched out and it made Alesha briefly disconnect from Kirito and Kirito finally took the opportunity of a lifetime.

He used the momentum built up from the spin, Kirito jumped out of the way of Alesha's next attack and ran off and he took a furtive glance back towards where Alesha had been. She was running after him and she was obviously faster than him but Kirito had a lead on her, this was enough for him to run for a good while before she caught up but not enough to evade her forever. Eventually he would either have to turn around and defend himself, or manage find a way to get Alesha to stop running after him.

Nothing he could think of would stop Alesha though he had one thought of a way to attack her. Kirito thought it would most likely spell out certain death but so did this game there was no time like the present to take a chance and run with it. With his sword out Kirito start gradually slow down his running. This would make it easier to stop while also making it so the boss wouldn't get an inkling of what he was trying to do. Thanks to the moon above as long as the shadows were in front him Kirito would be able to see approach without looking behind him.

Then he saw her shadow he put caution to the wind and turned around faster than she would've expected him and started to carry out his plan. His first strike would be a motion driven horizontally, this would have the ability to cut her in half but would not doubt get defended against. Having already taken this into consideration his next action was rather easier. Kirito flicked his sword up which made both of Alesha's spines go up also, which left her lower half open to strikes. This was the end of Kirito's plans, he smoothly transitioned into another horizontal and tried to attack he again but Alesha flicked one of her spines downwards.

This motion was incredible sloppy and Kirito took this and capitalized on it as much he he could. With a hard bang against it, Alesha's spine flew out of her hands and onto the ground. Alesha had now decided that she had enough and counterattack by taking off Kirito's left hand, which was barely hanging by a thread. Not even trying to defend against Kirito attacked once again and caught Alesha off guard. With a small knock of to the side, Kirito went into a full on vertical. There was no way that Alesha could jump away so all she could do was use her spine to defend against it. However this strike of Kirito was stronger than any of his attacks from beforehand.

Using all of the gravity and fight through the intense pain both from his shoulder and the stub that used to house his hand Kirito swung downwards with all of the force and anger he could let out at once. The effect was better than Kirito could have ever hoped for, not only did it disarm Alesha from her weapon, Kirito returned the favor and took off one of her hands. Now defenseless Alesha fell to the ground obvious trying to siphon off some sympathy but Kirito wasn't having any of it. Any of the human characteristics that Kirito thought she had was lost with her armor.

Making as many strikes as he could, Kirito absolutely slaughtered the boss until she had disintegrated into mere shards of blue dust to dissolved into the air. Kirito heard the sigh of relief as all of the players behind him rejoiced in the fact that all of the other skeleton, or in their cases, golems had disappeared but there was no applause. Something popped up in his menu but he dissolved and turned to face all of the players behind him. He was too far away to make out any emotion but if the dead silence was any indication they were not feeling joy at once again seeing the black swordsman. Having expected this Kirito turned around and started to walk towards the door, but was stopped a second notification, congratulating him on getting a new skill. Unbenounced to Kirito, he was not the only one to get this notification as a player in the crowd he had just left had also gotten it.

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Now this is the Longest Chapter!

How was the other person to get a unique skill and what was it? Leave your answers please!

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter!

Only one left to go after this

Have a wonderful week!

-Kirk


	155. Pitch

November 9, 2023

-Kirito and Sinon-

"That was some display back there" Sinon stated as she opened the door into Kirito's apartment. This was the last place that Sinon would've expected Kirito to be but as he was still on her friends list she didn't actually have to search for him. She was with Kirito at his apartment on floor seventeen, the one where she had seen Kirito all those months ago. Comparing what she saw in front of him and what she seen back then they looked like they belonged to two completely different people.

"I try." Kirito said. Sinon looked to where she had heard his voice from and saw him laying on his bed. Both of his eyes were closed and he had both of his legs lying off the side as if he had collapsed back first onto his was as if he was physically and mentally tired which Sinon could fairly say that was indeed the case as he had just soloed a boss. Not to mention that during that fight he was attack in such a manner that almost crippled him during it.

"You're an idiot." Sinon said exasperatedly. "Can I take a seat?" Sinon asked as she looked at Kirito who still had his eyes closed. With a lift a his head Kirito silently motioned her yes. "Where should I sit?" Sinon asked sincerely. Kirito either found this to be sarcastic or plain dumb as broadcasted from his next action. Openings his eyes Kirito looked at Sinon if to tell her, do you really think I care? SInon took this to mean that she could sit anywhere so she collapsed onto one of the chairs at the obviously new table.

"That was so nice pep talk back there, I don't think I could've done it. I probably would've said something along the lines of don't die and that just doesn't boast the morale of people all that well." Kirito stated with a bit of humor as he sat up and stretched. Then he stood up, did some more stretches, ones that he couldn't do while sitting and walked over to one of the night stands and turned on the lamp. "Sorry that it was dark in here, I was hoping to get some shut eye." Kirito stated.

"No worries, but I do need you before you get some sleep." Sinon stated as she opened her menu. Kirito inclined his head towards Sinon was he opened up the blinds to a window that Sinon had never seen before. With just a quick glance Sinon could see that the view was quite impressive and magnificent. The apartment that they were in was on the outside of the town so it overlooked the scenery of the floor. Sinon could see all the way until her eyesight got fuzzy, it was a perfect view of the rolling hills with rivers of floor seventeen.

"So what do you need me for?" Kirito asked as he fell onto his bed, this time actually landing on his butt rather than his back. Taking a minute to reposition himself to face Sinon, Kirito turned on the bed and his back let out a loud crack. This was on purpose as it had seemed that Sinon was off in her own dream land, one that included hills, if her stare could be believed. The loud noise wasn't enough to take Sinon attention back to the conversation so Kirito occupied himself by going through his inventory.

"What did you say?" Sinon asked obviously oblivious to how long she had been off in dream land. Looking at her, Kirito gave her look that said, you've got to be kidding me. Sinon bit her tongue, she was losing her grip and if rolling hills could distract her she wondered what else could. "You know soloing a boss isn't exactly the best way to comeback to the front lines." Sinon stated trying to divert the conversation away from her blimp in concentration.

"No but nearly dieing is, it shows that even though I abandoned the front lines for quite a long time, it is a task I would be willing to die for." Kirito stated as held himself up high with his hand over his heart. A childish grin also crossed his face as he said it. Much to Sinon amazement, Kirito held this pose for a good while before he broke it with a laugh. "You're right you know, I am an idiot, but I embrace it." Kirito said as he once more put his hand over his heart, but this time it was more of a fist.

"You know if I was coming back to a place where the majority of people hate me I would stay low, with that said what the hell were you thinking?" Sinon asked as her voice got slightly rushed near the end. She had personally seen some acts of stupidity quite often, especially on the front lines. Players trying to do as Kirito and solo a boss, but never so much as getting a hit off. Sinon personal favorite one of these is when Kibaou tried to do it and the boss basically bitch slapped him.

"Uhhh… That's good question, one that I don't have an answer too…" Kirito stated then he looked Sinon's face a could tell that an answer like that wouldn't cut it at all. "Well… you see the pain from my arm there was pretty blinding and it made it so I couldn't really think near the end there." Kirito said with a trying aura of convincingness. Of course, much to Kirito's dismay the effect was completely the opposite as well the trying part kind of reserved the effects.

"You'll need a better answer than that." Sinon said as she stood up and walked towards the window. With the window open and the lamp on she could actually see in the apartment unlike last time. While being small Kirito had made some improvements from last time. In addition to the two lamps that he know had he also had a table and two chairs. It seemed as though he was using the apartment for something other than sleeping. Sinon placed her palm on the cold glass of the window and looked outside. The sun was falling, not quite sunset but almost at that point.

"Why would I need better answer than, I think that was exemplary." Kirito said as he shoved two thumbs up at Sinon. This earn Kirito a small grin from Sinon followed but the slightest hint of a girly laugh. But whatever noise that Sinon was going to make was concealed by the face of stolidity that Sinon almost immediately donned upon showing some light hearted emotion. Sinon looked once more at the sun, they had almost an hour left before it would set, she didn't have much time left.

"The front line leaders want to meet with you, I expect them to have some questions for you." Sinon said as she turned around and faced Kirito. His face slowly lost its light heartedness but still remained fairly soft as he slowly realised the reason Sinon was there. "I was sent here to get you as Klein and Argo were busy and you are still on my friend list." Sinon stated as she walked over to the table once again and turned to face Kirito.

"Who all is there." Kirito said as he too stood up. Sinon watched as he opened up his menu and started to shift through it as Sinon tried to remember who all was going to be there. Both of Kirito's popped out of thin air and Kirito placed them on the bed as he also placed his cloak on the bed. Quickly Kirito put his cloak over his quite casual attire and started to tie his shoes before Sinon answered his question.

"Heathcliff and Diavel will be there, I believe Klein is also coming, and Asuna and Saffi, plus me of course." Sinon stated as she looked at Kirito trying to see if his faced showed an recognition of who was going to be there. However, Sinon could not see an change in emotion from Kirito after hearing the names and quickly gave up the task. Sinon watched as Kirito finished up tying his right shoe then he stood straight and readjusted his cloak.

"Let's go then." Kirito stated as he walked towards the door, Sinon in front of him. Sinon walked out of the apartment and she turned around expecting to see Kirito locking the door but she did not. The door was wide opened and Kirito's hand was on the outside handle, obviously contemplating something. "I'm sorry, for everything." Kirito said as finally stepped out of his apartment.

"Actions shine louder than words, show me that you want to make amends." Sinon said in response to this. In truth she had been waiting for him to say something along the lines of this for the whole entire conversation. "Besides, there is someone else that will want an apology much more than I do." Sinon stated as she Look Kirito, who had just finished locking the door. Kirito nodded, showing that though he already knew this and it was nice to remind him of it.

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And we made it, well Kirito still has the hard part in front of him

Hope you all enjoyed all of these chapters!

Next chapter will be out in like a month

Have a wonderful month in the meantime

-Kirk


	156. Pugnacity

November 9, 2023

-Kirk, Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Heathcliff, Klein, Saffi-

"So, Why was I called here?" Kirito asked as he stood in the middle of what felt to be like a conference hall. If there was one thing he did not like it was confrontation, especial when the confrontation included two people which he had ignored for the greater part of the year. Not to mention that three out of the remaining four were huge mean, the kind that made Kirito feel small. If Kirito had it his way he would be talking to a bunch of Saffis, people who don't have much physical bulk and that Kirito doesn't know.

"First of all I would like to thank you for coming here, given your current track record many of us weren't sure if you would come." Heathcliff stated. Off of this Kirito could tell that he was in for a doizy, maybe he should've skipped it just to feed their image of him even more. Who didn't think that he was going to come? Well Kirito crossed both Klein and Diavel off the list almost immediately as both of their relationships were pretty good. He had talked to Klein multiple times over the last year and him and Diavel had just an agreement between them.

The ones who didn't think he was going to come were probably Heathcliff, Sinon, and Asuna. Heathcliff probably didn't have much faith in the beater as most players he had meet didn't have much faith in him. Though to be fair most of this thought process was justified as he kind steered into with taking a thirty floor leave from the front lines. Asuna and Sinon both probably had the same thought when it came to this about to Kirito. Much to his dismay they probably thought that since he left the front lines that he wasn't very trustworthy. Saffi on the other hand was a wild card, Kirito didn't know much about other than she was the leader of the Storm of Centuries.

"Is it to be believe that you want to join the front lines?" Diavel asked. This was probably for formalities sake this was most likely an answer that already knew but none of the others did not. Kirito had the sneaking suspicion that by the end of this talk that his legs would want to kill him again as he was standing perfectly still in the middle of the room. With both of his hands resting calmly at his side, fist unclenched, Kirito inclined his head to to say yes.

"What have you been doing?" Asuna blurted out. There was no spaces in between the words and they sounded as though she might as well have been speaking another language. While Kirito didn't know exactly what she had asked him , he had an idea of it but waited to speak for a couple of moments. Both Heathcliff and Diavel looked at her as if to say we asked you not to do that. Sinon also looked at her but it seemed as hers was more out of curiosity rather than judgement. Once both Heathcliff and Diavel looked at him as if to tell that they did want to hear the answer.

"Training." Kirito stated with calmness. Though his one word answer was probably more annoying that it should have been, Kirito really didn't want to disclose that information to a room full of people. If he was going to tell anyone he would want to do it among his own accord and preferable to one person at a time. Though the faces of the players he was standing in front of told him that his answer would not suffice in the slightest. Kirito didn't care one bit, he would wait for someone to ask him to elaborate if he was going to tell them anything.

"What exactly do you do to train." It was Klein this time who spoke up. Among all of the people who were in the room with his favorite would most likely be Klein. If asked a year ago his answer would be different as he didn't know Klein all that well but now that he had effect burned both of his other friendships to a crisp Klein was probably his best friend, the only one who even gave him competition.

"Well, it was basically training all the time day and night. I barely gave myself any rest." Kirito said truthfully. Of the few people he had talk to during this time in his life, three of them were sitting in this room. With Klein is was mostly polite small talk when they ran into each other, but he had only met up with the other two once. With Sinon it was a brief talk with her had it really didn't mean much as Kirito wasn't really in the conversation that they had. However with Saffi it was a lot more meaningful. She had brought him out of his funk with advice and by telling him a brief summary of her life story.

"Alright then, we have some over things we have to clear up now so let's-" But Diavel was cut off by the one man who was his superior. Diavel had obviously wanted to move from something but Heathcliff had wanted to move towards. What they were quietly having a duel over, Kirito didn't know but if he had to suspect anything then it would be him and Diavel's talk before the last boss raid. But of course his would hopefully be answered as Heathcliff began to speak, cutting Diavel off.

"And you believe, because of this training, that you could by yourself, take on the boss?" Heathcliff asked Kirito. To be fair it wasn't much a question as it was an accusation but Kirito had already foreseen something like this. Kirito had personally that someone like Kibaou would have done it. Hell, he thought that Asuna or Sinon would've lashed out at him with something along the lines before Heathcliff. But as he expected it, he had his answer prepared and ready, in addition a counter argument and some counter claims.

"I don't believe that I could take on the boss by myself, but I believe that I had the best chance of surviving the encounter." Kirito stated with a note a finality in his tone. Hopefully this made it so that Heathcliff didn't want to advance onto that battlefield. While Kirito was sure of himself he wasn't sure of who he was facing. In truth Kirito didn't take much time out of his day to get to know people unless the either helped him and that was how he was going to repay them or he wanted something out of them. Maybe he had been spending too much time with Argo.

"Did you think that you were the only one to train as hard as you did?" Heathcliff asked once again with a quite a lot of accusation in his voice. His immediate thought was to say yes and leave since as it seemed right now that he was standing in front a panel a judges and none of them believe his case. Well one of them didn't while the other just sat around watching, not seeming to enjoyed but seeming to tolerate it. Both Asuna and Sinon had looks as though he deserved it, which was fair enough. Diavel and Klein both didn't want to intrude one the conversation while Saffi… Well she was laying on the table so he really couldn't tell what she thought.

"No but he has some unrivaled skill." Saffi said speaking her mind. This had a matter a fact tone to it, as if she knew what she was getting into. "He has an impressive amount of attack power and instincts, along with really good reaction time. He's not exactly the most innovative fighter but he knows how to fight and you can't say he wasn't impressive." Saffi stated still laying on the desk. Her non conformality grant certain looks from the others most notably Sinon and Heathcliff. If it was possible that Heathcliff was annoyed then it was this was it. Sinon however looked as though she was trying to telepathically tell Saffi to sit correctly.

"Show me." Heathcliff said simply to Kirito. "I do not agree with the choices Diavel had made but that is neither here nor there. I want to see your skill first hand, I request a duel with you and if you lose then you join the Knights of the Blood Oath." Heathcliff stated as he stood up from his seat. Even from a couple of meters it was clear that Heathcliff towered over Kirito. It was enough to make most people afraid but two things were helping Kirito not be afraid, much to his dismay. The fact that he just soloed a boss definitely helped out along with the fact that Kirito was really tired. Though these gave the sense that he could accomplish anything. All of the players looked at Kirito and Heathcliff with looks a surprisal and doubt.

"If you want me to meet your demands then I must have some of my own. Firstly I wanted the duel to place in a month. I just barely had my sword survive the last boss battle and I am in dire need of a replacement. Lastly, if I win then you admit that you wrong here and you never try someone like this again, do we have a deal." Kirito raised his hand out and walked towards to Heathcliff. Kirito's proposal made him waver. Kirito knew that for him, such an accomplished made, to admit he was wrong would be a huge strike to his ego and for that it would be just as worth it.

"Of course." Heathcliff said as he took he Kirito's hand and shook it.

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And here comes to duel between Kirito and Heathcliff… in one month

Sorry that this is late but the next one will come out in a couple moments

I hope you enjoyed this chapter

Hope you all have good summer

-Kirk


	157. Pioneer

November 9, 2023

-Kirito and Asuna-

"Hey Asuna wait up." Kirito shouted as he ran after her. They had just gotten out of the excuse that Heathcliff called a meeting. It was more like find a way to make Kirito feel as bad as possible. Thankfully, Heathcliff had forgotten one major fact: he still had had people on the front lines who kind of like him. What Kirito was trying to do at the moment was rekindle the flame that he effectively dropped an ocean on. Let's just say he had his work cut out for him.

"What do you want?" Asuna asked as she turned around to face Kirito. Her voice sounded conflicted between two ideas, the ideas however, Kirito did not know what they were. If her attitude was any indication she wanted whatever this was to be over soon as she either had to go somewhere or would rather be anywhere other than with Kirito. Unfortunately for Kirito both of the choices sound plausible. This of course would serve to bite Kirito in the butt like the many other situations he had made apparent when he came back to the front lines.

"I can't just talk to one of my friends." Kirito stated. Judging on the look on Asuna's face Kirito could've used a lot better lines to start of the conversation. "Hold on I can try this again… Nope I'm coming up with a blank." Kirito tried to bring a smile onto Asuna's currently annoyed face. This last statement didn't exactly make her smile but it made her stolid face show some more emotion other than annoyance and disgust. KIrito had to call this win as if he didn't call this a win he didn't know if could do better than he just did.

"What do you want Kirito?" Asuna asked once more. This made Kirito chuckle inside of his head rather his mind's response to this made him chuckle. One more word, you see we're getting somewhere. Plus he had the imagery of himself congratulating himself. As usual this emotion appeared on Kirito's face and this made Asuna give him a quizzical look. Nothing she had said had been funny so Kirito could only guess that she was either calling him an idiot or a dummy, most likely both now that he thought about it.  
"I wanted to ask you what's been going on." Kirito stated with a little more hesitation than anything else he had said beforehand. If Kirito had to guess Asuna reaction to what Kirito said it would be one of two options. Option A was personally Kirito favorite as she actually answered his question rather than anything else she would do. Option B was the less favorable option as noted by the fact it was behind option A. This option basically meant that she ignored Kirito's question and went to attack him, which to be fair Kirito thought was the more likely option.

"Do you want me to tell you what happen last week or a year ago?" Asuna asked rhetorically with quite a lot of sarcasm and disdain. Well this had been better than what he had expected. Personally Kirito had expected her to hit him, either with her fist or sword, which was easiest for her so this bark at him was met with open arms. In being the non rational personal that he was with the amount of sleep deprivation that he had at the moment he responded in a way that he really shouldn't have.

"Well a year ago we were on floor one, if I had to guess we level two maybe three but I personally doubt it." Kirito stated with a grin on his face. Now this earn him a punch, one packing quite a lot of power, more than Kirito had been expecting to come out of Asuna at this moment. If they were in the real world he would no doubt have a bruise on his arm from it. His hand went immediately up to massage down the pain and he saw a different emotion cross Asuna's face as he did so.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…" Asuna's apology was meet with an encouraging and sincere smile from Kirito. Did they hit a turning point in the conversation? Why was Asuna sorry? Asuna wasn't one to not play around, in fact she did it all the time. When they were back in in the earlier floors it was something that she did in frequency and honest her punch just now hurt as much as the ones back then. Or maybe it was the fact that she didn't want to overstep her bounds. They weren't as close as they were back then so she didn't deem her acts of playfulness as playful, maybe.

"Well everything has been kind of busy as of late thanks to the fiftieth boss raid, I had to get all twenty of the DPS players in the Knights ready for it." Asuna stated as she looked at Kirito. This earn her a confused stare from Kirito as he had absolutely no idea what she was talking about as well, his mind had been preoccupied for the last couple of moments with questions. Kirito looked at her for a couple of moments wondering why she had just said what she did and then he got the old fabled oh moment and thanks to that he felt very dumb.

"Gotcha, nice job on getting to be third in command, I don't think could even try to do that." Kirito stated with a smile. This was true as he didn't play along the best with other people. He was by no means as bad as Kibaou and beaters were with each but he wasn't all that great. Kirito usually just ended up either staying completely silent or pissing them off with his skills. This thought was subsided once he looked at Asuna, she seemed to the verge of asking or saying something. But she was extremely conflicted on whether not she wanted to speaking what she had on her mind to him.

"You seem really out of it." Asuna stated, returning the smile that Kirito had given her. That couldn't have been what she had on the tip of her tongue and she still seemed tense, as if she wanted to still say even though she had just chicken out. Kirito had never seen Asuna act hesitant to do something, she was usually one to act brash and without much thought. Asuna usual said what she wanted to say and had no filter but for some reason she had one now.

"Well with all the energy I used at the boss battle I'm pretty tired, in fact I would been long asleep isn't wasn't for that meeting." Kirito stated truthfully. Maybe if he didn't hold what was on his mind she would come out with what she wanted to say. Well in that case wouldn't he have to come out with all of the ideas and thoughts one what and why she had not said what was on the tip of her tongue. Maybe not, Kirito realised that much like everything else his logic was flawed at least at the moment.

"Then why are you here talking to me, wouldn't you rather have this conversation when you're well rested?" Asuna asked while looking at him curiously. Now she had lost the aura of wanting to say something but not saying it. Her logic on the other hand was quite sound much to Kirito's dismay, only if he had sound logic then maybe he would've heard what she had to say. This was all null and void as Asuna had a really good point, Kirito was exhaust and no matter what happen in this conversation he still wanted nothing more than to collapse on his bed and sleep for at least fourteen hours.

"Wanting to get rid of me already?" Kirito asked with a grin on his face. This was of course meet with a string of no's and that's not what I meant from Asuna. That was what happen at least until she had seen his face completely change. The grin on his face gave away the fact that he was joking and much like his last joke this one also earned him a punch. Though he didn't feign it hurting this time it actually did. Probably because she had used the same strength but his shoulder at hit his forearm, the very that had nearly been severed from his body.

"No there is something I wanted to do." Kirito stated as he opened up his menu and sent her a friend request. "I would like to make up for my actions but only if you want to." Kirito said as he closed his menu and looked at Asuna. "If you ever want to talk to or ask me question just send me a message, I promise I will answer all of your questions even the ones I would rather not answer with only the truth, but not right now. As you concluded I am really tired and I would like nothing more than to fall asleep. Goodnight Asuna, see you again." Kirito stated as he walked away.

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Hope you all liked this chapter!

Thank you all for actually read this fanfic!

Next chapters will be up in a week

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	158. Projection

November 10, 2023

-Asuna and Lizbeth-

"Liz, Liz, Liz, Where are you Lizbeth!" Asuna shouted literally the second after she step into the shop. There may not have been time in between the point she step in for her to see if Lizbeth was in the front room. However Asuna's assumption was correct as the only things in the front room were a bunch of high quality weapons, everything from the rapiers that Asuna would wield to shields that Asuna wouldn't use if her life depended on it. The front room was devoid of all life but Asuna so Asuna concluded that Lizbeth was in the back room.

Without even stopping to so much as knock on Lizbeth's so called bedroom but after every visit it seemed to be turning into more of a workshop. The door to the room was the type of door that a store would have, it was a two way door so that you could push it from both sides and thankfully it didn't have a handle. If it did Asuna would've probably for reasons unbenounced to her always use the handle. As soon as she opened the door she heard a scream, a girlish scream no doubt that it was Lizbeth.

"What the hell Asuna don't you knock before entering someone's room." Lizbeth said as she picked on extremely hot blade off the ground. The only reason Asuna knew the blade was hot was because of the copious amount of time she spent with her as while the guild did take up more time than she would've ever expected, she didn't really have any good friends. According to Lizbeth, if the metal is red you doubt want to touch it since you'll burn yourself, and no one wants to burn themselves. This was of course told to her after tried to pick up a burning blade and subsequently dropped it.

"I think you lost that right when you forgot to put a handle on your door." Asuna stated as she plopped herself down on the couch that Lizbeth had bought for her. On rather to stop Asuna from lounging in her bed as and I quote "Stop fluffing my pillow." So to get Asuna to stop sitting and laying on her bed Asuna got a couch for Asuna to sit on and it was quite comfortable. "Why are you back her?" Asuna asked Lizbeth once she was comfortable. Usually Lizbeth was in the front room, at least during the working hours.

"There this new ore on floor forty eight and there is a lot of request to get weapons from it. So many that I had to turn away some people for sheer lack of time." Lizbeth stated as she dipped the sword into water then pulled in out. She started to shape the metal of the broadsword as she heard Asuna walk over. Well walk maybe be not the right word, it was more of a run. "SOOOO, Why are you here." Lizbeth asked. Asuna usually came around at night time but almost never during the day.

"Guess what?" Asuna shouted as she had both for her hands on Lizbeth's shoulders. She was shaking so much in fact that she was enough to make it so that Lizbeth was also shaking. Kindly, Lizbeth shrugged off the hands as she was sure that she would mess up the sword if Asuna was shaking her. Asuna was almost never this way, it looked as though she couldn't contain her excitement as if she just seen something spectacular. This of course gave Lizbeth a cruel but enjoyable idea, at least for her that is.

"Chicken butt." Lizbeth said with a smirk as she glanced up at Asuna. This of course did not earn her a grin as it more or less earned her a scowl as Asuna was not pleased with Liz at the moment. As usual, this didn't phase Lizbeth as she was more or less used to random spurts of excitement and then disgust that appeared randomly and sporadically and Asuna personally hoped that at least this one had a reason behind. "What?" Lizbeth asked Asuna with the smirk from earlier not quite gone.

"He came back!" Asuna stated as all of the barely contained happiness exploded out of her. If she was champagne bottle the cork of her just shot out of the top and now of off her inners were shooting out with any delay. Asuna immediately went on to tell Lizbeth literally everything that had happen at the boss battle. This of course got Lizbeth to have a few reactions at certain times during Asuna's lengthy story.

Her first one was after she had been almost shot by the purple bolt and Lizbeth said that she had gotten lucky there which Asuna couldn't disagree. The next one was after Asuna had gotten out of the nearly life ending experience, which of course earned her an are you okay from Lizbeth. Having not gotten to the good part Asuna shrugged her off and started to talk about what Kirito had done in the raid. Lizbeth, for the most part had be quite as Asuna recounted all of the stunts Kirito had managed to pull of, ending with him taking out the boss. "Wow, just wow." Lizbeth was speechless for a couple of moments and then realised something. "I'll need a name sometime you realise that right." Lizbeth said.

The next action that Asuna took was a lot more girly than anything Asuna had done beforehand, it was as if the person in front of Lizbeth was a completely different person. Lizbeth imagined this is what asuna would look like either if she was stoned which Lizbeth seriously doubt it would ever happen or drunk which was a little more likely to happen but only a little. Looking as though she was in a trace for quite a long time, long enough that Lizbeth had already started to make a shield, Asuna finally responded with one word: Kirito.

"Wait." Lizbeth said as she racked her brain for a second. She had heard that name before, but where and who. It had been a long time since she had heard that name name but she finally realised where she had remembered hearing it. Lizbeth remember two players, both front lines swordsman in the beginning of the game, she had crafted one of them a sword, her first named one in fact, and the other player's name was Kirito. "He's been here before." Lizbeth stated after a couple moments of silence

"When?" Asuna asked not even leaving a second of silence after Lizbeth had spoken. Lizbeth closed her eyes trying to remember when the last time he had been there was. In truth there was a lot players she kept track of and her mind was full of orders and other things, Kirito was not at the forefront of her memory. Nor was he anywhere near the back, Lizbeth couldn't for the life of her remember any other time he had been in her shop besides when she had craft her first named sword.

Scratching her head, Lizbeth went into the front room. Almost all of the deals she made were made out here and since Kirito was a regular customer she must have talked to him at one point out in her front room. Looking around nothing ringed a bell until she saw any empty display on the wall, one that had been empty now for at least twenty floors. "Remember me telling you about a player that asked me to display a sword then mysteriously took it back, that was Kirito, it must have been around floor thirty or something." Lizbeth stated.

"What was the sword?" Asuna asked, obviously intrigued that she was learning more about what Lizbeth could only assume was a crush. Lizbeth again had to rack her brain as she did not remember the characteristics of the sword other than it had been the name sword she had made for Kirito's friend. What was his name, KIrito, no that was who they were talking about, Kazuma, that's a different player, Coper, yes it was Coper's sword, the first named sword she had crafted.

"I had made it for his friend Coper and it was the first named sword that I had made, then around floor twelve I think Kirito brought it in asking for me to display but not sell it. I did and it stayed up there for quite a few floors until out of the blue he came and asked for it back. That was the last time I had seen him." Lizbeth stated as she looked at Asuna and she could tell that Asuna wanted more but she of course didn't really have anything else. Then it seemed as though an Idea hit Asuna and without even say goodbye or thank you to her best friend she left.

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Thank you all for reading this chapter

Hope you all enjoyed it

Next chapter will be up in a few

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	159. Past

November 10, 2023

-Asuna and Argo-

"Tell me everything you know about Kirito." Asuna stated as she grabbed Argo and turned her around. She had found Argo in a tavern on floor thirty seven after a quite a while and this made it so she really didn't want to the delay it any further. In truth, Asuna knew that business with Argo was usually notoriously slow or extremely fast, depending on what mood Argo was in. The rudeness that Asuna had just displayed probably wouldn't have the best of effects now that Asuna thought about it and she slightly cursed at herself.

"My My, what do I owe the pleasure?" Argo said with a grin on her face. "You know in most of my transaction we start with a formal greeting of some kind and then we move on to the questions." Argo stated as she patted the seat next to her. Asuna took this to be mean, sit and she did. "You seem really desperate, enough to forget the manners she have had fine tuned over the years you have lived." Argo said as a devious grin crossed her face. "I bet I could get a lot of money off of you." Argo said as she rubbed her hands to together. "Now shall we start." Argo asked as an even wider grin crossed her face.

"Come off Argo, you know what I want." Asuna said exasperatedly. She had obviously gotten off the the wrong start as Argo was most definitely going to make this a painfully for her as possible. In addition to that she was also going to extort Asuna out of quite a bit of money if her grin was to be believed. So not only was going to be an event that wasn't going to be at all enjoyable thanks to Argo it would also, most likely leave her broke. And if the look on Argo's face was any indication all of the enjoyment would be had by Argo.

"Asuna Asuna, we talked about this, what is the proper way to start the conversation?" Argo grinned as turned on her stool to face Asuna. This of course changed Asuna's slightly annoyed but still had an aura of cheeriness to it, to completely annoyed and ready for it to be over. She had even for the slightest second considered leaving but Argo was right. No matter what torture Argo put her through she wanted the information desperately had would most likely do anything short of killing someone to get it.

"Hello Argo." Asuna stated. She had somehow also managed to put on a face that didn't look as though she wanted to kill Argo right now and merely looked as though she was pleased to have found Argo. This of course please Argo and Argo gave her the motion to continue on. "I would like to know everything Kirito has done over the time since he left the front lines till now." Asuna stated as she started to speed up as she neared the end of her sentence.

This made Argo do something that Asuna had not expected her to. Asuna had expected her to laugh then make quite a few comments bordering on rude and funny then finally address Asuna after a couple of minutes. But she didn't in fact all she did was bring her hand up to her mouth and closed her eyes as though she was thinking about something. Then Argo opened her eyes and looked at Asuna with a look that made Asuna feel as though she was being interrogated. This feeling stopped when Argo moved her hand to show a grin that she had on.

"I'll be damned." Argo said with a chuckles following soon afterwards. This didn't make the slightest bit of sense to Asuna so Asuna figured that Argo knew something she didn't, which was in all possibilities the most likely explanation. "You coming here on your own accord?" Argo asked as she looked at Asuna. Not having a clue what was going on, Asuna nodded yes and this gave Argo a defeated look. "This is the last time I am ever going to make a bet, I can't seem to win any of them, just when I thought I had you figured out you and pull this… God damn it." Argo said exasperatedly and her head fell in the bar making a loud thud. "Where should I start?" Argo asked as she screwed up her face and looked towards Asuna.

"The day he left, please." Asuna stated in her most polite voice. She had no idea why Argo was being so easy and cooperative with as she knew that Argo prefered to make the transaction fun. Fun for Argo usual meant to keep the person in her company for as long as possible using both annoying tactics and the fact that she was the hub of information in the game. No one had the contacts and skill that Argo had, if there was something in the game that was happening she either knew it or had ways of getting the information.

"Yes, I remember quite a few things happening on that day but I'll with what I believe to be the most important event to come out of that day." Argo stated and then she took a long gulp of whatever was inside her mug. "Coper died that day as I believe you know, he was killed by Laughing Coffin, PoH their leader in fact. However he and Kazuma caught him and were attempting to figure out a way to keep him permanently detained when he escaped. After this it gets a little hazy as I only have Kirito's words to go off of." Argo stated in one long breath.

"I know that following Coper dying he visited three floors, the first being the first floor, he went to see the monument of all the players names. The second however I am not sure but I believe he went to visit a friend or drop off something. And lastly he made a dungeon run. If you remember the floor twelve field boss was never kill due to the dungeon's notorious nature of being difficult to navigate. In the dungeon he ran across both that boss and a girl." Argo stated again in one long breath, that seemed be Argo's only actually skill, she was able to speak continuously on little breath. Asuna opened her mouth speak but Argo held up her hand.

"First of all, no interrupting me, save all your questions for the end. Secondly, yes I know who the girl was and we'll get to that. That girl died in the confrontation with the boss and Kirito ran away from the boss. He came to me soon after asking me to find out who she was. Do you know the other thing he had asked me to do?" Argo asked. Asuna thought for a second but she came up with nothing so she shook her head no.

"He had asked me a while back to research into Laughing Coffin and tell him everything I knew, if you want that information it will cost you but Kazuma has it all too. Back on the other topic the girl was to put it bluntly a nobody, she was quite hard to research as she had no one on her friends list but I did end up finding her in game name, it was Rose from what Kirito told me she was on the shorter side with black hair and a round face. But now it's time to move on to what happen while Kirito was off on his own." Argo stated as she tapped the counter twice, in a matter of seconds her glass was refilled as she took a swig.

"Nothing happen for a while other Kirito's obsessive want to get stronger so all he did was grind and grind, at a taxing rate I assure you. I know from Klein that he had been doing it all different times as he had ran into a couple of times. He started to change after two meetings I think. Sinon tracked him down and asked why he leaved, I don't believe she got many answers but I do believe that it made Kirito think, this however what not enough to warrant him to change his ways. He met up with Saffi, no doubt not on purpose but it changed him. I do not know what happened in their meeting but Kirito changed how he was after that, he started to care about his well being along with train in a different way." Argo said as she took yet another gulp, probably to rehydrate her overused mouth.

"A little while later he joined he guild by the name of Moonlit Black Cats. It was six members including him and he seemed happy for the first time in forever but I know that this did not last as all but him and the leader died, if you want to know how, ask Kirito I do not know. They went their separate ways and Kirito went back to training though I think that he had changed as he now actually wanted companionship thanks to his run in with the guild. He met up with me another time and gave me something to give to Keita along with paying all of his debts for the aforementioned tasks." Argo stated with a kind of mellow tone at the end, Asuna did not know why.

"And that brings us to the present but Believe you still want to know what happened recently so I'll tell you. He met up with Diavel beforehand and proposed his plan to solo the boss and it was meant to be a last ditch effort, after everything else had been exhausted. This worked out better than they had thought it did as you know. I have one last thing to tell you and I don't know if this will come to a shock to you but he asked me to if you come to me for answers to tell you everything that I have and without resistance, so before you thank me, thank Kirito he payed for this experience. However I would like to ask a favor of you, could you deliver this to Kazuma tell him he has to pay me back some time." Argo stated as she materialized a letter and handed it to Asuna.

Asuna took it without any thought on the subject as she was thinking of why he had told Argo to do as she did. Did he know what she was going to do or was it something else entirely?

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Hope you enjoyed this chapter

Thank to all of you who have follow this fan-fic

Next chapters will be out in a week

Have a wonderful week till then

-Kirk


	160. Breathtaking

November 11, 2023

-Ran and Tsubaki-

"That looks amazing." Ran said as they overlooked a cliff and sky see everything that the light touches. Tsubaki wouldn't have called this view amazing as it seemed that one word was so much more than just amazing. Besides for the cloudless blue sky perfectly framing the crimson sun the land was magnificent too. It was flat as it could be but the land was everything but two dimensional. In addition to the vast amounts of vegetation that covered the ground but didn't make it seem overcrowded or out of place, there was streams of rivers that flowed through it. The rivers criss crossed through the land with varying sizes, each one giving off sounds of rushing yet still water.

"Do places like this exist in the other side?" Tsubaki asked, unable to take her eyes away from the sight in front of her. She would have to come back her at sunset to see the sun dive into the vast distance, so far that her eyes couldn't see it. The only thing that she could think of right now was how the scene would look with the reds and oranges of sunset framing and reflecting off the ground. Sitting down at the very edge of the cliff, Tsubaki could not think of a place that could ever compare to the sights that were in front of her. Somehow she knew that even if she couldn't see she would always be able to see this place.

"I have no clue, maybe you should ask somehow actually spent some time outside of a facility." Ran stated as she sat down next to next to Tsubaki and put her arm around her. Tsubaki flinched a looked over at Ran, who gave her a wide smile. Closing her eyes, Tsubaki face fell into her hands. How was she supposed to go back after all she had seen all of the world the had to offer? Thoughts like this kept returning to her since they had beaten the fiftieth boss. Tsubaki didn't want to leave the game if it meant to go back to go back to her old life. Her life had been devoid of any sights such as this one and Tsubaki didn't know if she could stand it.

"Come on, you feel like scaling this cliff, there's a building at the bottom, you'll be able to admire more from a closer distance." Ran stated as she took Tsubaki's hand and started to pull as she started to scale the cliff. Hesitantly at first, Tsubaki started to climb down the cliff. Then she got more hesitant after she looked down, no doubt that this was probably the most dangerous way that they gone go down to the ground below the cliff. Knowing game design she doubted that scaling the cliff was the only way down.

Tsubaki closed her eyes once more and froze where she had been. Maybe if she had not seen how far it was down she wouldn't have stopped in her tracks and second guess what they were doing. Every logically part of her body and mind was telling her to grab Ran and find a different way down to the ground but she something was stopping her from doing this. If she was back on the other side would she being doing this. No there was no way she would be doing this as no one ever allow some like her to go climbing, especially without and safety gear. Why was she afraid of what she had seen, her sight was supposed to inspire her not stop her in her tracks. With this in her mind, Tsubaki followed ran all the way down to ground without even so much as a second more of hesitation.

"Not that it wasn't fun in all, but next time we scale a cliff that could lead us to our deaths could we at least use a rope." Tsubaki said as she finally got two feet on firm ground. WHile climbing down the side of a cliff may have been one of the most exhilarating things she had ever done, there was no way in hell she would do it again. Ran looked at Tsubaki as if to say, you know I wouldn't have any other way. Tsubaki rolled her eyes then followed her best friend towards the building.

If the simple scenery made her jaw drop then the building in front of her made her jaw become completely unhinged from the rest of her body. If she were to describe it in on word, after quite a lot of thought she would've said it was elegant but not even thought word captured her thoughts on the building in front of her. No, it was a building, if she said it was a building even in her thoughts she would be lumping it with all the other bland buildings, no what was in front of her was a masterpiece.

Even if Kayaba had made this a death game it certainly didn't feel like it at the moment and Tsubaki had to give him props. To be able to distract them from the situation that they were in was no easy feat but Kayaba had managed to do it one many levels. If this game hadn't been a literally death game then Tsubaki personally thought it had the ability to stand with some of the best games in the MMO genre and maybe even overall, but then again she didn't have quite the video game knowledge that others had.

It was things like what was in front of her that made the game great in her eyes. The combat system was in her eyes as complex as anything could possibly be as you could do everything that you could in real life and more plus there were infinite selection of weapons you could use. In addition to the combat system there was also the scenery that was portrayed time and time again. The game did not skip in this fact and produced visuals that made you want to see them in the real world. All of this, at least for Tsubaki made it so she didn't feel as though she was playing a death game, it felt much like a fantasy come true sort of thing.

This emotion that she felt in her mind all too often, certainly much more than other players was brought to the forefront upon looking at the masterpiece in front of her. The first thing that caught her eyes as she began to look closely was the huge staircase at the front. Ran had described these to her as cinderella staircases, whatever thought meant. They seemed as though the were made out of gold and the railing on either side were definitely to far for someone to be touching both at the same time. It seemed as though every part that was apart of it's structure was made out of gold or something that imitated it.

That wasn't to say that the masterpiece in front of her was a pure golden creation no, gold wasn't even the made color, if Tsubaki had to give it a main color it would've been green. Out of almost every place imaginable there was some sort of plant growing For instance on the railing were vines the criss crossed in every way, forming some sort of mesh barrier underneath the golden railing. To top it all off there were paths of running water falling down in streams from the top to the bottom.

"Now this is something." Ran stated what Tsubaki believe to be the understatement of the year but Tsubaki would tell Ran off for that latter was she was still taking in the masterpiece. It had many different tiers each on being smaller than the first ending in one fine square of golden plants at the top. The masterpiece was a perfect square, identical on each side as Tsubaki had found out after looking on each side of the masterpiece. Pillars had replaced were walls would have usually been but the plants of all colors and sizes made it look as though they were actually walls.

"You know what this is don't you?" Ran asked as she looked Tsubaki. Finally paying Ran some heed, Tsubaki turned around to look at her best friend."No, wait why would you know this I'm stupid aren't I." Ran stated as she ruffled her bland hair. Tsubaki face instantly dropped into the if you don't tell I'm going to kill you look, much to the contrast of her pink hair. "If I am not mistaken this is a modern day representation of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the seven ancient wonders. It actually doesn't have really anything about what it is in fact nobody even knows where it was." Ran stated in her matter of fact tone. That didn't matter to Tsubaki as she had just found where it was. It was inside the game Sword Art Online.

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Sorry for the late upload, I have been non stop playing splatoon 2 since Friday and forgot it was Sunday

So if you want to blame anyone, you can blame me, but it you want blame anyone else, blame splatoon 2, but don't do that, splatoon 2 is too amazing for that.

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next one will be out in a few

-Kirk


	161. Buzz

November 12, 2023

-Kirito and Lizbeth-

Taking in a breath, Kirito stepped into Lizbeth's blacksmith shop, well at least the front part of it. It had been forever since he had went into the shop and Kirito could say that it had changed at all. A soft sound of ringing bells echoed around the room thanks to Kirito opening the door, he knew that Lizbeth would be in the front room momentarily. Kirito's foot fell onto the the hard wood of Lizbeth's shop and made quite a loud foot fall as he walked into the shop, he had forgotten just how her shop felt.

Kirito closed his eyes and took in a breath and smelled the air. It smelled just the same as it had always done, a mixture of wood, metal and the smell of burning somewhere. That probably summed everything that was being done in the shop as Kirito knew that behind the door in the back was her workshop. Kirito hoped that it was different from the last time he had seen it as it was quite a hodgepodge of things back there. It was as if a blacksmith had a one room house and tried to make that one room all purpose, let's just say that it didn't work out all that well.

Looking into the display cases, Kirito was surprised by how much Lizbeth's work had progressed from the last time he had examined her work. In the past she was fairly good, maybe not the best in the game but she was most likely somewhat in contention. However what he was looking at now was something else, she may be the best blacksmith in the game. In truth Kirito didn't have any other blacksmiths to base this statement off of but he had a sword in could base it off of. If he had not just recently gotten it then he would've definitely invested in a couple of her swords.

"Long time no see, isn't it Kirito." Lizbeth stated out of nowhere. Kirito hadn't heard her come into the room but he was glad as he didn't want to spend too much time shopping. Like most males at least of his age he really didn't like shopping though he did have to say that if he was going to shop for something he would much rather get a sword than clothes. Kirito looked up and saw the pink haired blacksmith in the doorway. Her colors were much more vibrant than the ones he would see in a dungeon. He briefly considered changing his hair color for a moment there then decided that black suited him much better than everything else did.

"How have you been?" Kirito asked as he walked over to Lizbeth and stood in front of her. They both looked the same as ever, Lizbeth with her slightly girlish blacksmithing offit the suited her perfectly and Kirito's dress of practically completely black. Looking at each other in complete silence Kirito realised just why he had came back to the front lines. It simply wasn't enough to play the game no the game was now a way of life and well life gets pretty boring when you have no one to talk to. Though he and Lizbeth weren't the best of friends it was still fun to talk to her like everyone else.

"Not too bad a little over worked, I kinda feel like I should've started this up with someone." Lizbeth stated as she let herself fall to the wall for support. "That's what I get when I'm the best blacksmith in the game." Lizbeth stated as she did a kind of weird pose but it all the same made Kirito let out a laugh. It felt good to actually laugh genuinely as it rarely happened to him when he was by himself. "But what's up with you, I heard that you just up and joined the front lines then took on the fiftieth boss by yourself." Lizbeth said as she pushed herself of the wall.

"Nothing much besides the backlash of coming back to the front lines after half a year." Kirito said with a bit of a chuckle to his words. "Look at this." Kirito held up his arm to show Lizbeth his left sleeve. "It had been completely and numb throughout the entire boss battle basically. I was stabbed there twice, it hurt like no other." Kirito said as he wove his finger through the shredded left sleeve of his cloak. "Plus my hood isn't doing to well either." Kirito laugh as he pulled up his hood to show Lizbeth that it was only hanging on by a couple of threads.

"I know an excellent seamstress, trust she's amazing, the best in the game. I beat I could get you a session with her, we're business partners you see." Lizbeth stated as she opened up her menu and start to flip through her friend list. This stop upon finally looking after an intense session of to put it lightly, utter excitement she saw Kirito's face. If she had to describe it she would say that he was laughing at her but yet again all he was doing was smiling, as if he was reminiscing about a past event.

"I'm fine." Kirito stated as he waved her suggestion away. Lizbeth gave him a look of doubt after looking over his cloak. There were other, albeit smaller cuts along almost every side of his cloak but it seemed as though they wouldn't rip into something bigger, unlike the valleys of separation on his cloak and left forearm. "No really I'll deal with this latter, but I do have something for you to help me with." Kirito stated. "Libzeth looked at him with annoyed expression, he could tell that she didn't want another request. "Please." Kirito pleaded as bowed in exaggeration, he had known her to be person who wouldn't turn a blind eye to a friend. "I need you to make three items." Kirito stated after he saw the slightest change in her expression.

"Man you really know how to work a girl don't you." Lizbeth said exasperatedly as she hunched her back and collapsed to the ground, much in mockery of Kirito's over exaggeration. "And I assume you want all of the item's custom made don't you." Lizbeth stated with even looking up. Even though she didn't look up she could tell that Kirito did by the air of silence that followed her last words. "Well I'll have you know that I running short on materials so if you want something top of the line you'll have to get the materials yourself." Lizbeth said as she stood up and look up at Kirito.

"That won't be a problem." Kirito stated as he opened his menu. He was in it for nearly a minute until he materialized three objects of the same type and presented them to Lizbeth. Taking them in her hands, Lizbeth's eyes went wide. She held them a couple of times before and she could count the number of of times she had seen them on one hand. The rarest ore in the game, so much so that the three in front of her double the number of them that she had seen. It had been found on floor forty eight a floor that hadn't even been open for a month and somehow Kirito had three of it.

"You want three swords then?" Lizbeth asked as she raised her head to look at Kirito. Kirito reach out his hand towards Lizbeth hands and grabbed one of the ores. He placed it back in his inventory before looking up at Lizbeth. All Lizbeth saw was Kirito gleaming face as Kirito started to once again search through his inventory till he pulled out something. Lizbeth looked at what Kirito had pulled out had completely confused Lizbeth, he had pulled out a folded piece of paper. What the paper contain only added to Lizbeth's confusion as he unfolded and showed it to her.

"Can you do it?" Kirito asked Lizbeth as Lizbeth looked at the piece of paper. "I need you replicated, I want it to be exactly how it is shown in the picture, proportions and everything." Kirito stated he looked at Lizbeth. Kirito knew that if anyone would do this weird task for him it was Lizbeth, and he had complete faith that Lizbeth would be able to pull through for him. Lizbeth ran her hands through her short hair as she contemplated, she didn't know how she would do it or even if she could do it.

"I'll try." Lizbeth stated. She looked at the picture and examined it for a little bit. After a couple of seconds she could tell just how much work had gone into drawing the picture that was in front of her, it was as if he had drawn it from memory after many mistakes, it must have taken him hours. "Now as for these ores I assume that you want swords out of them, right?" Lizbeth asked, trying not to tempt fate again. If he gave her another task as hard as the he had just presented to her she didn't know if she could handle it.

"I want two swords, a one handed longsword and a rapier in addition to the picture." Kirito stated as Lizbeth took the two ores in her hands and put them in her inventory. "You don't have to finish it immediately, I would like them by the latest at the end of the month." Kirito stated with a smile. At least he knew that she had a lot on her plate at the moment, he was trying to be flexible for her and she noted it her mind to thank him for it latter. "As for payment, this should suffice." Kirito stated as he put the last ore in her hands. The ore was more than generous and it seemed as though he knew as he left before Lizbeth could give it back to him.

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What is the third gift? Guess what it is if you can!

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next one(s) will be out in a week

Have a wonderful week

-Kirk


	162. Ban

November 13, 2023

-Sinon and Silica-

"Sinon, you're back!" Silica yelled as she jumped out from her sitting position and up into the air. This of course resulted in a couple of things the least of which being the pillow that was next to her being thrown of the couch. In addition to that, Silica made Pina scared with her rapid movements and Pina flew upwards and bubbles shot out of her month. Last but not least, the apple Silica had been trying to make Pina balance on her head fell and hit the ground with a dull thud.

"Sooo, What were you called down for?" Silica asked once she was a lot closer to Sinon, like almost of foot away close. They had both been trying to make Pina do tricks before Sinon had been called down by Saffi in the dead of night. This was a usual practice for them especially on nights that they had already down everything that needed to be done. Silica and Sinon would stay up with each other until they got tired and Silica would go back to her room. At first they had stayed up in Silica's room but Sinon's was much bigger and Silica's constant nagging had gotten the better of Sinon.

"The usually really." Sinon stated as she walked passed Silica and plopped herself down on the couch next to were Pina had decided to curl up after her last traumatic event. Almost upon instinct, Silica held out her hand and started to put the little dragon, she had never had a pet in real life but the time that she had spent with Silica and consequently Pina had acclimatized her to it. Pina stirred for a brief second before going back to her almost still state while purring to Sinon's petting.

"You talking about the next boss raid?" Silica asked as she plopped herself down on the other side of couch. She positioned herself in such a way that her legs went over the couch's arm rest while the top of her head barely touch Pina's ruffled tail. This was a common occurrence as if Silica knew that no one would judge her for not sitting right on the couch then she would sit in all sorts of ways but never upright with her back against the back of the couch. Sinon face showed a slight smile for a couple of seconds, this of course was missed even by Pina.

"Yeah, Diavel wants about fifteen of us for the raid, from what I understand it is going to be an easy one." Sinon stated as she leaned her head back against the couch and closed her eyes. The slightest of sighs was to be heard from Silica and she knew exactly what it meant. Since Silica didn't really have the levels compared to the rest of the guild she usually didn't get to go to the boss raid unless they need to bring an excess of players. As such the only boss raid she had ever been to was the fiftieth floor one and Sinon knew that she wanted some more action. "And yes, Saffi said you couldn't go." Sinon stated with an air of finality.

"But she asked you to lead the players for the raid." Silica said as she flipped over, picked up the apple of the ground and once again was trying to balance on Pina's moving head. Sighing, Sinon nodded, without even being at the meeting Silica knew that she had been once again asked to lead the players. "And you attempted to decline again, right?" Silica asked know looking at Sinon's usually stolid expression. She know had the expression of annoyance but yet still impressed across her face.

"I hate you." Sinon stated defiantly as she stood up and opened up her menu. It didn't take long for her to materialize what she wanted, in her hands now lay her bow. She didn't take the time to materialize the arrows, they weren't needed. Raising herself into the correct position for shooting, Sinon pulled back her bowstring till it rested just a centimeter away from her cheek. Sinon could feel the muscles in her back and arms stretching and while this may have put tension in the her body it relieved some of stress from her brain. Finally she let go of the bowstring and watched her dry shot return to where it should have been.

"You know doing that isn't good for the bowstring right?" Silica smirked as she looked towards Sinon. Sinon watched Silica as a grin spread across her friends face while a scowl replace whatever resemblance of emotion that Sinon had been wearing, then a small smile grew on Sinon's face. When they had just started to get to know each other Silica had tried to see how good she was with a bow. As it turns out she has terrible aim but Sinon did remember telling her that a so called 'dry shot' was bad for the bow. How times have changed.

"You're incorrigible." Sinon stated as she plopped herself yet another time on her couch. It felt good to say that for some reason to Sinon as if it was something that she couldn't have ever imagined herself saying. Back in the real world she didn't have many friends as she really wasn't the social bee and her past didn't help her that much. Since the age of eleven she had put her studies in front of everything even so much that she had skip a year. However the one time that she had put something in front of that she had been trapped in a death game, maybe the universe was trying to tell her something.

"Yeah, but that's why you keep me around." Silica said as she finally brought herself to sit like normal person would then she broke it immediately. Much like her boss, Saffi, Silica used her legs to bring Sinon's coffee table a little closer and propped both of her feet on the table with her legs crossed. This annoyed Sinon to end as the coffee table that she had not once used to hold coffee now was a slightly out of place. It just enough to make it so Sinon couldn't take her eyes away from it, she wanted to fix it so bad. "So you're leading the raid." Silica stated bringing Sinon out of her dream like state.

"Unfortunately, I am beginning to think that she never had the intention to lead her players. Even when I psychically tell her that I don't want lead them, we end up getting into a debate and she makes some goods points on convinces me." Sinon sighed as she folded her hands in her lap. Why did she even join this guild it seemed more like a job than anything right now and somehow she had to do all the work even though she wasn't the leader. "Why is it me that she wants to lead the guild, why did she choose me?" Sinon asked to no one in particular as she closed her eyes to think.

"Have you ever wondered why Saffi picked some of the people in this guild?" Silica asked as she finally sat formal and didn't take one step to change it. Sinon looked towards Silica with her question leaving confusion and wonder in her eyes, Sinon responded with most likely the answer Silica had been expecting. "From what I can tell she picked members not on their levels or skills but based on their personalities. From what I can tell, no one in this guild is overly jealous nor have any animosity towards beaters. From what I can tell, everyone in the guild is nice and genuine. Saffi obviously tried to make a guild of the most really people and tried to not make a guild of the strongest players but to make a guild of players that together would become the strongest guild." Silica stated as she looked at Sinon.

"Then why would she pick me of all people, I can and have named countless people that would be better suited for this role." Sinon said as she stood up and started to pace. Being on her feet allowed her think better for some reason, maybe it was the fact that she could move while she thought. Sinon ran her hands through her hair and over her face. Maybe if she told Saffi that she didn't want to then she wouldn't have to, right? No Saffi go off on a tangent and some how some way she would manage to convince Sinon to lead another boss raid.

"I think she picked you because she trust more than anyone else to command an army, No, her army to victory. Do you really see her talking to any as much as she talks to you? She trusts in the fact that you have to ability to lead her army even better than herself. If it were up to me I would also choose you, since you while not being the most commanding of figures are one of if not the strongest players in the guild. People need a strong player like you rally behind. Additionally you are my friend and I would trust you with my life. I'll tell you right now that surely Saffi must be thinking the same thing." Silica stated while she a hand on Sinon's shoulder the whole time.

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Sorry for being a little late.

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter will be out in a few

Have a great day

-Kirk


	163. Blueprint

November 15, 2023

-PoH, Zaza, Johnny Black, Lux, Zack-

Johnny dreaded this. He always had but this time it was going to be ten times different as he feared something was going to be revealed. During his free time he had been tracking two players. One of these players used to be his apprentice but now had graduated into the rank of master. The second one was a player that was known to be dead by everyone but himself. They had been around all the same areas during the last two weeks or so and if Lux had figured out that Griselda was alive and he had not killed her then his head was on the chopping block.

"Welcome all of you to the monthly meeting of Laughing Coffin." PoH said as he stood up and curtly welcomed everyone. The tone of his voice was anything but welcoming if anything it was basically saying that if you mess with him he is going to kill you. Johnny had been to enough of these to know that a death in one of these meeting was not something surprising. If any of them came back with a uncompleted mission then they would certainly be killed no matter the excuses they came up with. It was better to die on the mission then to come back empty handed.

All of the players said their varying assignments and what had happened on them. Most players had three assignments, these usually were either to kill a certain player or to steal a certain item off a player. Johnny personally had to get a really rare ring of attack off of a player, and he had to kill two other players, both beta testers who had hidden themselves in the middle floors. Each of his assignments went off without a hitch. Both of the beta testers died an unceremonious death and Johnny had used torture methods to great success on the player.

Most of the other players had the same amount of success, and the others had went above and beyond. These were players that tortured players into giving them items before killing them, players that went under the domain of Zaza and Zack. All of them basically got all killing missions and these players were the only players who got the missions to kill front line members. Those type of missions had the highest fatality rates as it was hard to succeed in those missions. Players with those missions would often disappear for weeks at a time mapping out their victims movements and waiting for the opportune time to strike. However even with doing that and third of the either die on their missions or kill themselves so that they don't face everyone else.

In the beginning they had players who would run away and hid from them but not a single player who did this managed to stay alive. PoH would send multiple players after them and made it so that if the player even left a safe zone then they would die immediately. This would either make the players go mad and surrender themselves or underestimate Laughing Coffin and die as soon as they went out of a safe zone. Rumors of how they used to deal with these players circled around the unofficial guild and made it so no player ever tried to evade death ever again.

After all of the players reported their success, not a single player came back with a failure, they went on all the players who had died. This time there was four players who hadn't came to the meeting and all three of them had been confirmed dead thanks to the information specialists. That also meant that their unsuccessful missions were passed on to other players each of whom seemed positively joyed that they had gotten a hard mission. Usually the harder of missions reaped the most benefits and everyone in Laughing Coffin knew this.

With the dead players of course came people who had to fill them and as such they talked about recruiting new members. In this meeting alone he had spotted out two new members that had obviously passed all of their tests to get into Laughing Coffin. The information specialists went on about other players wishing to seek entrance into Laughing Coffin and the players they deemed to be the most trustworthy. In Johnny's opinion none of these players were even slightly trustworthy however some were better than others, at the end of this conversation they had about five players that they were going to send through the trials.

"As you all know me and the other information specialist have been gathering information from all across the floors." Lux stated as she stood and walked towards the middle of the room. One of the best qualities that she possessed was her lack of fear. While this made he reckless at times it made it so she never seemed as though she was out of place, she always fit in even in places that she obvious shouldn't be in. That was what her such a good information specialist, it never seemed as though she was gathering information for nefarious deeds.

"I trust that a number of you know this but with the fiftieth boss floor it brought back Kirito, The Black Swordsman. Our sources indicate that The Black Swordsman went out of his way and single handedly took out the boss. It was a close match though I can believe that he is stronger than he was back before we lost track of him. I have taken it upon myself to tail him and see just how far his abilities and equipment has progressed. If any of you want the information pertaining to The Black Swordsman I can send it to you after this meeting." Lux stated without a waiver in confidence.

"In addition to that it seems as though the front lines have started to try to find a way to build a prison. From what I can tell this idea was sparked when The Holy Dragon Alliance fell. It seems as though that The Knights of the Blood Oath are leading the charge with a bunch of the other guilds supporting them. From what we can tell it is either Diavel, the second in command, or Kazuma, brother of Zack leading this action. From what Zack has told me I think it is reason to believe that Kazuma is the Leader. Anyone who wants information pertaining to these recent actions may ask me after the meeting. Also our leaders are confirming a plan to stop this action." The last words felt different to Johnny, he didn't know Lux all that well but he could tell that they had a different air to them.

"Upon our investigation of two of our deceased members were came across a trail, one that shows them being killed. They were both carrying out their respective missions in the middle floors when they met their demise. We have two suspects for these crimes but we do not know either of their identities, they both stay incredible well hidden with help of hoods and masks. We will be investigating this further but around the middle floors I suggest you to keep your wits about you, if any of you want the little information we have on them I will send it to you after the meeting." Even with the nervous glances and whispered conversations, Lux didn't stop to allow any hesitation to strain her voice.

Crossing his hands, Johnny sat in deep thought as he thought about what he had expected was happening down on the middle floors. From his own contacts he knew that two of their members had died in approximately the same places by presumably the same people. Lux had confirmed what he had suspected, that someone was killing their players in the middle floors and Johnny had a guess of who. If he had been contracted to be killed be Laughing Coffin he knew that he would've taken his revenge and this was exactly what Griselda.

"For our last bit of notices we have something unusual to tell you all." Lux had said bring Johnny out of his of his mind. He had missed any of the other notices, he would just have to ask Lux when he asked for the information she had talked about. "With The Black Swordsman's return has marked the return of him getting quite a few request to be dead, the higher ups have decided to wait to kill him until we have more requests, so under no circumstance are you to kill him, anyone who goes against this will find themselves dead." Lux stated with a definite end to the conversation.

Johnny watched as she sat down and straighten her back so that she was sitting in the best manner possible. Now Johnny knew what he needed to do, he needed to talk to Griselda to find out why she was doing killing and that she knew the risks. However the hard part was doing this without Lux or anyone else noticing, he would need to get himself a mission down on those floors as an alibi. Johnny strain his ears will Zaza and PoH Gave out missions to everyone, as one of the most senior members Johnny had to figure out a way to get a mission in the middle floors without being too obvious.

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Ahh laughing Coffin, I love them

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next one(s) will be up in a week

Have a wonderful week till then

-Kirk


	164. Blade

November 17, 2023

-Asuna and Lizbeth-

"Hey Asuna, how have you been?" Lizbeth asked in probably the most creepy voice Asuna had heard in a long time. It was as if Lizbeth had been waiting for her to come through the door and had prepared those six words to absolutely creep the hell out of her. To be fair Lizbeth's plan worked in part because as soon Asuna found where Lizbeth had been standing it absolutely look as though she had gone crazy. From the couple of seconds Asuna had taken to look over Lizbeth she had been absolutely scared.

In Lizbeth's right hand was a red dagger, not some pale red that could be mistaken for pink, it was fire red, Asuna could almost feel the heat all the way across the room. Held backwards and in her other hand was another dagger, a duplicate to the last one but it was a cold grey instead of the intense red. To match the two daggers was Lizbeth's devilish grin that in mere seconds of remaining more creepy than anything else broken into a grin as Lizbeth started to laugh. Asuna heard a clang of metal against the ground and it brought her out of her state of shock and her frightful face turned into one of pure annoyance.

"I never would have thought you were that easy to scare." Lizbeth said as she sat back down on her stool and picked up the dagger she had dropped to the ground. Glaring, Asuna walked over to the wall closest to where Lizbeth was forging and leaned herself against it. As per usual, Asuna would wait until Lizbeth was done with her current forging. From the little knowledge about blacksmithing Asuna had gained over the time Asuna had been friends with Lizbeth she could tell that Lizbeth was just over the halfway point. Asuna believed that all Lizbeth had to do know was to cool it down then to sharpen it.

To pass the time, Asuna took her rapier into her hands and started to fool around with it. Thanks to it's incredibly light nature, Asuna was able to spin it, through it up in the air a catch it and even balance it on her finger. Asuna had to admit that the last one was something that she had taken a good deal of time attempting learn how to. Thanks to the copious amount of free time when waiting for everyone to assemble themselves for the raid boss she had the time to also. This was usually met with glares from some of the more proper members but all of them knew that when the boss raid start she was anything but lax.

"You know, with you doing that I feel anything but relaxed." Lizbeth stated out of nowhere, breaking the silent aura that had seemed to manifest around them. This of course lead Asuna to lose concentration a drop her handle on her rapier. It landed on the ground with a thud reminiscent of the dagger Lizbeth had dropped but her made more clangs before it lay to rest. Asuna silently cursed herself for a moment before she kneeled down to pick up her blade. The blade in question was on the last legs of it's life and was nearly broken, Asuna knew that she would need a replacement soon.

"Are you trying to put me on edge?" Asuna asked with a defeated tone as she let herself slide down the wall into a sitting position. Lizbeth, as usual resigned to not being helpful at all and went back to her craft, from what Asuna could tell she was about done now. In a couple of swift motions, she easily and seamlessly put away her rapier and then consequently, her menu. Asuna placed both of her hands behind her on the whole and started to use them to climb up. This earned her an annoyed glance from Lizbeth but nothing else came of it.

"Well it's kind of hard to put someone on edge whose already there." Lizbeth said almost immediately after she finished off the dagger. After testing it out for a couple of seconds, Lizbeth placed the dagger next to it's sister and turned to face Asuna. As usual, she donned a smile and moved into give Asuna a hug. It had been longer than usual since they had last seen each other. This was in part both of their faults while completely out of their control. Tons of players happened to be replacing weapons and armor which meant that anyone who didn't use their guild's blacksmith likely used Lizbeth's work. While this may make he schedule busy it did instill a sense of pride in Lizbeth, she was the best in her craft. On Asuna's side the upcoming boss battle of course didn't help out and Asuna had to again command all of the DPS players.

"What's been going on with you." Asuna asked as she disconnected herself from Lizbeth and stepped back a couple of paces. Asuna could of course guess what Lizbeth had been up to but this was only the outlines of such events. The journey was always to interesting part even if she knew everything that happen it made her all the more interested to find out why it had happened. Asuna fell onto the couch in the room with Lizbeth not longer afterwards.

"You know Silica?" Lizbeth asked as she sat down on the couch. This question was met with a look of confusion from Asuna, it was clear to Lizbeth that Asuna didn't really remember names. "Sinon's friend, she about this tall, pigtails." Lizbeth said as she raised her hand to show Asuna the height. Unfortunately, Asuna wasn't every helpful as all this earned Lizbeth was another shake of the head. "Beast tamer, has a pet dragon." Lizbeth stated curtly, if Asuna still didn't know who it was then Lizbeth would give. Thankfully, Lizbeth say a look recognition light up in Asuna's eyes. "She order a pair of dual knives and payed a heft to price for them to." Lizbeth said as she stood up and walked over to where she had placed the knives down.

Lizbeth walked back over to Asuna had handed her one of the blades and saw the look of impressment on her face. Waiting for a couple of seconds while Asuna examined the blade with an impressed look on her face, Lizbeth handed the other one to her. Holding both of the one in separate hands, Asuna examined them closely, so much so that she brought it mere centimeters away from her eyes to look at the edges. "They're identical." Asuna stated as she looked up in awe. Everything down to the sharpness of the blade to length of the handle was the same.

"Not only that Asuna, what do you think it's made out of." Lizbeth stated with a look of pure pride plastered on her face. Asuna looked from the blade to Lizbeth and back again before a feeling of excitement rushed into her body. Before she could answer Lizbeth question Lizbeth spoke, "It is." Once again Asuna opened her mouth to speak but was cut off by Lizbeth. "I'll tell you how I got it later but first you have to see this." Lizbeth stated as she opened her menu a materialized a sword after she put the two daggers back inside.

"May I?" Asuna asked as she outstretched her hands towards the rapier. If it was anything the two daggers then even holding the sword would be a godsend. Without even hesitating Lizbeth handed the rapier to Asuna. Carefully, Asuna took the blade in her hands and stood up to get a better analysis on how it felt. As she had suspected it was made out of the same material that the daggers were made out of and it suited it perfectly. It was light yet oddly heavy but in the right places. It's lightness would serve to make it's attacks fast while it's heaviness would serve to use gravity to its advantage.

"Hold before you start to congratulate me there's another one." Lizbeth said as she materialized a one handed long sword. "This one has some weight to it." Lizbeth said as she passed it off to Asuna. Expecting that she was exaggerating her movements and her words, Asuna only used one hand to grab the sword. This was a mistake as the sword was quite a bit heavier than the rapier. Asuna carefully but quickly placed the rapier onto the ouch then used two hands to lift the blade and examine. Sharp and strong, the blade would no doubt cut through any material in the game. While it may be heavy, as long as the player who wield this had an impressive strength stat they would be fine.

"These weapons will last until floor seventy five." Asuna said as she gave Lizbeth back the one handed long sword. Anyone would do anything to have one of those weapons and from what Asuna could tell someone had obviously gone through great lengths to obtain them. From what Asuna had known, Lizbeth had been out of that metal since it was damn near impossible to get. Asuna even spent hours trying to find one but to no avail. Whoever commissioned these weapons had obviously found the material by themselves.

"Yes I suppose they will but what I think you will find interesting is the person who gave the material to make them." Lizbeth stated before she made a couple moments of silence to increase the tension. Asuna had known who it was even before Lizbeth had said the name, it was Kirito.

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I hope you all enjoyed this chapter

If you have any concerns or questions, please tell me

Next chapter will be out in a few

Have a wonderful day

-Kirk


	165. Brand

November 17, 2023

-Asuna and Lizbeth-

"Then, you don't mean, is the rapier mine?" Asuna was barely able to string the last four words in order to make the question. To be fair, Asuna wasn't even sure if they formed a coherent sentence but it was better than anything that she had said before it. Truth be told she had been wondering who the rapier was for as there wasn't that many rapier users to begin with. It wasn't exactly the easiest nor the safest weapon to use so many players shied away from it. With that said Asuna knew of two or three rapier users that may have been able to have enough many to purchase something of this caliber.

"Technically it's Kirito's but I personally don't think he will ever use it." Lizbeth said as she once again pulled out the rapier. After examining it over probably for the hundredth time she handed it back to Asuna. "He didn't even have any request on how it was supposed to look, he just told me he wanted me to forge the best rapier possible." Lizbeth said as she took out the other sword. Asuna looked at the long sword for a moment and could see that Kirito had at least made some input. While it was not completely black the majority of both the handle and the blade was while the other colors weren't exactly a ray of sunshine.

"And he asked you to make a sword fitting of The Black Swordsman." Asuna stated with the utmost certainty. Lizbeth confirmed this though she did say that he had obvious not thought about it at the time as he had sent a message a day later telling her this. Looking down at the sword in her hand it confused her on how it turned out the way it did. The blade was almost completely silver save for the guard which was blue and the accents of red along the blade. At the end was an almost completely red handle but unlike Kirito's sword it was a soft red almost pink accent my some sky blue. "Are you sure he didn't ask you to make it like this?" Asuna asked.

"Well when someone doesn't have any reservations on the design I basically have free liberty and I well, thought of you while I was crafting that blade." Lizbeth stated, somewhat embarrassed. This was met with a hug from Asuna was they embraced each other once more. Now that made sense, if it was out of pure luck then Asuna would have been absolutely dumbfound at how Lizbeth had gotten so lucky to produce a blade her on pure luck. However the actual explanation was even more satisfying in Asuna's mind.

"Thanks Liz." Asuna said into her ear before breaking the hug. Asuna held out the sword to Lizbeth for her to take back however Lizbeth looked a little hesitant to take it back. "Liz, it's my blade then I'll get plenty of time with it, but if it's not I would rather not be embracing it." Asuna stated with a small chuckle at the end. This brought a smile to Lizbeth's face as she took back the blade and put it in her inventory. Lizbeth repeated the same process for the long sword then fell onto the couch.

"I doubt it is anyone's but your's Asuna." Lizbeth stated as she laid relaxing on the couch. This caused Asuna to look up at Lizbeth with some confusion, hoping that Lizbeth would put some reason behind her last statement. "Think about it, how many people do you think he knows?" Lizbeth stated as she leaned forward and looked at Asuna. Racking her brain Asuna thought of everyone she knew Kirito was on talking terms with. Argo and Klein were both given, he had been on talking terms with both of them since they had been friends with him since the beginning of the game. Asuna also suspect that Sinon would be on the list but she assume those waters were a little rocky. Besides the guild leaders Asuna couldn't really think of anyone else.

"You see what I'm saying, I don't think he knows another rapier user besides you. So unless he is going to try and use it himself, which I personally deem unlikely we can safely assume that rapier is meant for you, I personally think that he is going to give to you for Christmas." Lizbeth stated with confidence as she put her hand on her shoulder. "Though wouldn't you like to see him try and use a rapier, personally think it would snap after one too many slams." Lizbeth laughed as she leaned back onto the couch.

"What makes you say that?" Asuna asked Liz. There was probably a hundred different responses Liz could give to her and she would probably believe almost every single one. However instead of telling her why she thought this, a huge grin grew across her face. This grin told Asuna that Lizbeth had just remembered something, something that she deemed would be the talking point of the conversation, the creme de la creme. It in Lizbeth's eyes was going to be the end all be all, after she revealed what she plan there would be no doubt left in Asuna's mind.

"Kirito came to me and asked me to forge three items. He didn't need them immediately but requested he have them by the end of the month. I believe this is so that he could use this long sword against Heathcliff, but the other two items don't seem like things he would ever use. I mean Kirito using a rapier would look just down right funny which is probably not what The Black Swordsman is going after. The last item however, I doubt he would ever use as it seems practically useless." Lizbeth stated as she pulled and item out of her inventory.

"You have no idea how hard it was to make this item and I believe Kirito knew how hard of a task he had given me. Trust me when I say this, he will know how hard this was when I see him next. This took me a day to make and that was just the finished product. I had at least a handful of unsuccessful attempts at this. Now I know have gotten your full and undivided attention i will show it to you." Lizbeth stated with a smirk. "I present to you one of the weird requests I have ever gotten." Lizbeth stated as she handed Asuna a container.

Asuna, of course, took it almost to eagerly into her hands and started to look it over. The container was nothing special, just your average everyday container, in fact she was pretty sure she had seen it in the real world more than once. "You're supposed to open it." Lizbeth stated, trying her hardest to hold in a laugh. This made Asuna mentally sigh as she opened the container, man she was dumb. A simple mechanism got the better of her brain today, maybe it was because of the influx of information that she had just received. But nevertheless Asuna opened the container feeling more dumb than she had felt in awhile.

Holding it in her hands, Asuna wondered why Kirito would have asked Lizbeth to forge something like this. It was your common everyday item, both her mother and father had them while she did not. They were everywhere in the real world though she could only think of one player in the game who had them. Looking at them for a second, Asuna realized that they were incredibly simple yet thought out as if they were meant to be a copy. After holding them back into their closed position, Asuna placed it the container and handed it back to Lizbeth.

"I believe that he had me forge it so he could give it to someone he knew in the real world for Christmas. A simple gift but incredibly thoughtful nonetheless, I personally would've never thought of something like this." Lizbeth stated as she put back in her inventory. That was probably what it was for but Asuna had another question rise in her mind, who? The one person that Asuna was sure Kirito knew from the real world was dea so it was someone else. Three people appeared in Asuna's mind in and instant, Sinon, Klein and Argo. No, she had seen him meet Klein but Sinon and Argo always seemed as though they knew him on a level above herself. One of them two would be the recipient of that gift.

"Now you know what you have to do, right?" Lizbeth stated as she looked at Asuna with a look that she could quite place. Not knowing exactly what Lizbeth meant, Asuna shook her head no. "You have to go on that date with him, I know it's not a date but informational meeting doesn't have the same ring to it." Lizbeth added the last part when Asuna opened her mouth. "Trust me, the rapier will mean a lot more if you actually talk to each other beforehand, and you promise me that you get him something for Christmas too." Two thought coursed through Asuna mind, one was that Lizbeth could read her mind and the other was that unfortunately that Liz was correct.

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What's the last item?

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter(s) will be out in a week

Have a wonderful week till then

-Kirk


	166. Babble

November 21, 2023

-Kirito and Asuna-

"You know when I said you take me out for an experience I would've expected you to take out to a restaurant I have never been to or go sledding down a hill." Asuna stated as she looked towards where Kirito had planned what they were about to be doing. Kirito had given her two options on what she wanted to do, either the information meeting or an experience. When Asuna had tried to make him tell her what the experience was to be, he just laughed and said it was a surprise. This of course made Asuna want to find out what it was and in turn end up in the last place Asuna would've have thought that Kirito would take here on a 'date'.

"I never been sledding, I suppose that's because when you live in the suburbs there isn't a lot of hills to do it on, right?" Kirito said as he continued to walk on, just a little bit ahead of Asuna. Was this a date or was he just leading her to her impending doom, maybe if she left now she would be safe. NO, she had to give Kirito a least some faith that he wouldn't stoop so low as to try and kill her. And if he was trying to kill her why would he bring her to a dungeon on floor thirty three. Asuna didn't even remember anything of note from this floor, yet alone dangerous. Even the floor boss and field boss of this floor were pathetic now that she was thinking about it. "We're almost there." Kirito stated as he stop a crouched on the ground.

"Where exactly are we going?" Asuna asked, trying to catch him and get him to tell her. As usual this did not work and Kirito seemed as though he had suspected her to try it then too. Kirito laughed a little bit then smiled at her after telling her that it would ruin the surprise if he told her. This served to infuriate Asuna. Half the party was her right, so didn't she deserved to at least have an inkling of what they were doing. Well to be fair he had given her one hint but what the hell was she going to do with an old rapier with a lot of durability, dual? Now that she thought about it that kind of made sense. "What are you doing?" Asuna asked Kirito.

This immediately made Kirito do a couple of actions. Firstly held up his hand and clenched it to make a fist, as if he was signaling her to stay back. Then he turned around to face for the first time in a while but he wasn't looking at her, his eyes were strangely unfocused. Asuna opened her mouth to speak but was cut off by his next action, he jumped up and covered her mouth. After staying with his hand pressed against her mouth, he then broke apart and put a finger over his mouth, he wanted her to stay quite. Then it made sense he was listening to something, or more likely someone.

Asuna listen as Kirito remain still as he also listen. Over the faint resulting of winds, Asuna heard on pair of feet grow quieter until it was masked by two other people. They were all too quite for them to making a casual stroll but unlike the other player they talked a bit. Nowhere near the little amounts of idle chit chat she and Kirito got up to but a lot more than the other player. "How'd you like my gift Keita." Kirito stated out of the blue as she jumped up from his crouching position that he had turned to and rounded on the two players.

Not too far behind, Asuna also the two players and was taken aback by their appearances. If they had not had the green player marker above them, Asuna would've immediately mistaken them for Laughing Coffin players. They were in all black but unlike Kirito they had hoods and had masks on to cover their faces. One of them was male and was glaring at Kirito while the other was female and was eyeing both of them carefully. Without another word, the presumably name Keita turned around and walked away with the female right by his side.

"What was that?" Asuna asked as she ran in front of him a spun around on the spot. They now stood a couple of meters apart facing each other. Rather than the concerned look he had a couple of moments ago, Kirito's face and eyes turned soft. For the briefest second Asuna wondered if Kirito would answer the question, or better yet if he would answer the question with another question. Asuna knew that he had spent quite a lot of time with Argo and the one thing that annoyed Asuna the most about Argo was the fact that she would never answer a question unless it was to benefit her.

"A friend, or someone who used to be my friend, something tells me that we didn't have the best of reunions." Kirito said with a chuckled at the end. This was probably because the beginning part sounded anything but cheerful, in fact it sound more melancholy than anything like he regretted something. Asuna opened her mouth to ask him a question but closed it after a second's thought. If the answer to her question was anything like the last one then Asuna would rather not ruin the mood in such a careless matter. Rather than ruin the mood with a careless question, Asuna opened her mouth to ask a different question.

"Who was the other person then?" Asuna asked. The female seemed as though she had not wanted to be there even more so than the one called Keita. To her it seemed as though she was eager to keep on doing something and at a guess, Asuna would say that she wanted to keep following the other person that they had heard. This was probably a lot safer of a question than asking Kirito why they weren't friends anymore. Though to be fair as the player had not made any indication that she knew Kirito, Asuna doubted that Kirito would give her any meaningful answer.

"That is a good question, but unfortunately one I do not have an answer to. She doesn't even reminded of anyone so I would have a hard time believing that it was someone I knew. Though I don't really care that much for finding out who it is as I would rather not meddle in what Keita is up to." Kirito stated as he walked past Asuna and continued to walk on. Now that answer was nothing like something Argo would say. Not only did it answer Asuna's question without using a question to do it, it also gave Kirito's reason behind why he didn't know and it told her that Kirito had no intention of finding out.

Asuna stood unmoving for a couple of moments as she began to process everything that had happened in detail. This was not at all what she had expected, though she had to hand it to Kirito. For being something that she had done so many times before it was oddly different than it had been any other time. Kirito had made the experience completely different for some reason, not that Asuna could place it of course. While not asking him questions about his past, she was slowly gaining more knowledge on The Black Swordsman. "Come on, mon amie." Kirito said as he held out his hand back at Asuna.

"Just because I greeted you in french doesn't mean you have to use every french word you know." Asuna sighed as she walked on, ignoring Kirito's hand. She a small shot of remorse when she did this but nothing more as it seemed as though Kirito had been unfazed. Letting out a laugh Kirito turn towards Asuna and looked at her for a second. This just served to confuse and annoy Asuna. Now Kirito was just being weird. "What?" Asuna asked exasperatedly as her hands flailed all round to gain his attention.

Kirito attempt and failed to stifle a laugh at this sight. "Well it's a good thing for you then, I don't know many french words." Kirito said as he regained his composure. Asuna looked confused for a moment and then realized what he was talking about. Thinking, Asuna bit her lip trying to remember all of the french words Kirito had used before it had pissed her off. "You know I remember at least seven times you asking me where we were going to. Now that we're here I would've expected at least some type of response from you." Kirito stated. Instead of telling him to shut up, Asuna turned to look to see where Kirito had brought her to. He had brought her to a goblin village.

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Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter will be out in a few

If you have any questions feel free to ask

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	167. Backdoor

November 21, 2023

-Kirito and Asuna-

Unfortunately, Asuna been correct in thinking that where Kirito had brought her to, she wasn't going to like it one bit. Not only had she gone through dungeons more times than she could ever want to count, this one was also of no significant note. Unlike some of the dungeons that had some rather complex puzzles or others that were just simply breathtaking, this goblin village was a simple as could be. Asuna wanted to install her trust and faith into Kirito but somehow without even knowing he was slowly losing both.

"Welcome to the dungeon I have probably had the most time in." Kirito stated as he held out his hands as though he had been presenting something. This just confused Asuna. Who in the hell would spend time here, as far as she knew there had been nothing of note on this entire floor yet only this one dungeon. It has to be that Kirito knows something about this dungeon that no one else does. Maybe the was a secret room he had or some rare spawning rates or maybe an interesting mob. "Do you have the rapier I ask you about?" Kirito asked but Asuna had no intention of answering it, at least not just yet.

"What's this?" Asuna asked with a bit too much punch. This made Kirito's had fall slowly down as he slowly became more and more afraid, this however did not make Asuna back down. "I'll admit that the walk here wasn't too bad but you bring me to a dungeon, you know how many of these things I have went through. Too many that's how many. And what do you do, you bring me to a dungeon, use your brain Kirito do you think I want to go to a dungeon?" This question was rhetorically had she made sure Kirito knew it. She was positively livid, why the hell would he bring her here when this was not doubt the last place that she wanted to be.

"I understand." These words seemed to come out of Kirito emotionlessly yet filled to the brim with dread and remorse. Asuna saw Kirito's face fall and realized he must have really want her to at least hear him out. Maybe she had reacted to harsh, maybe out of all the time she had spent with the battle harden front lines she had forgotten that bluntness wasn't always to way to go. "If you want to go back now I understand, I won't hold it against you." Kirito resigned as he started a slow pace towards the dungeon.

"Wait!" Asuna shouted a lot more than she had heard her do so in her mind. She had reacted harshly and bluntly. Actions like those would not gain her friends they would push perspective ones away. Asuna felt as though she had just reacted in a way that was a lot more in Kirito's domain. If there was one thing Kirito knew how to do it was push people away if the last month had been any indication. This made a stab of emotion hit her, she didn't want Kirito to go away again and if she could help she would attempt to keep him near her. "Why did you bring me here?" Asuna asked tentatively.

"Well… I uh." Kirito was stuttering. He had obviously not expected Asuna to ask this as he had assume his idea of a good time was a bust and had already resigned to the failure. Waiting, Patiently, Asuna put up a thoughtful face that hopeful convey interest and remorse. This was easier than she had suspected it to be as she had been feeling both of those emotions. Anything that Kirito would show her would be no doubt interesting and she regretted acting so brashly. "I haven't told anyone this before, could I show you instead?" Kirito asked hesitantly.

"Sure." Asuna said a little too absentmindedly. Kirito had just subtly revealed something that was probably of no consequence to him but meant the world to Asuna, he hadn't told anyone about what he was going to show her. That in itself was cool, Kirito was the only one to know about but that also meant he hadn't told Argo. Somehow, Asuna had suspected that Kirito had told Argo literally everything that Argo would be interested in and if Kirito was the only one to know how this dungeon was special then there was no doubt in her mind that Argo would want to know. This made her feel happy inside, Kirito was going to let in her in on a secret that Argo didn't know.

Walking side by side but not holding hands, Kirito hadn't offered this time and Asuna didn't want to intrude or seem anxious. However Asuna could tell that she was anxious, she could tell that whatever Kirito had found must be the best thing in the game, at least for him. Obviously she was on the edge of her seat wondering what it could be. There was no doubt in Asuna's mind that it was something to do with the game. This much was obvious as though the game was a literal death game there was still some interesting parts and discoveries to be made, Kirito had obviously found one of them.

"Do you have the rapier I asked you to bring?" Kirito asked once they had reached the outskirts of the village. Nodding, Asuna materialized what Kirito had asked her to bring. A weak rapier with a ton a durability, basically a brand new floor one rapier. Luckily for Kirito, Asuna had one in her inventory so they didn't have to go get one. "Okay so this will sound insane but I want you to fight one of the goblins with that sword, aim for their weak points, like their joints." Kirito stated as he silently walked closer to the village and picked up a stone of their road.

The first thought was that Kirito was insane, that seemed incredibly likely as what he was asking her to do was basically a death wish in the making. However she held her breath, Asuna did not want to make another mistake like last time. He wouldn't be asking her to do this if he didn't believe that she could, right? Well that's the only thing that was keeping her from going off on Kirito more than last time. Gripping the rapier that she hadn't used in a literal year, Asuna stood up from her crouching position and readied herself. "Okay." Asuna stated with the smallest bit of hesitation.

Kirito nodded to show that he had heard her and he held up the pebble to throw at one of the goblins. From what Asuna could see their was all times of goblins, all the way from the regular longsword users to using weapons like shurikens and even dual knives. Taking aim Kirito threw the pebble at one of the longsword goblins and hit him in the head. She had to admit that even if Kirito was insane, he still had an ingenious way to bait the goblin. It was probably since he had played other games before this one that he had the idea to use items to bait a mob. Kirito ran behind Asuna, mouth good luck as he passed.

The goblins charged all out at her, holding absolutely nothing back, it was determined to be in the dominating position. This of course did not bod over well with Asuna as like the goblin she wanted to be in control. A rapier was absolutely horrible on defense, any defense that Asuna had was mere improvising and dodging. The one problem with a rapier was that it couldn't take a hit so it meant that while on defense you were limited to dodging and deflect. Knowing this, Asuna charged at the goblin.

Before they meet in the middle Asuna unleash a couple of linears only for the goblin to sidestep all of her attacks and attack her with a barrage of slashes. They did fairly well, do to their slightly slow nature Asuna was able to dodge most of them but one of them manage to chip her side. It didn't do much damage and it allow Asuna to sidestep the next attack then make some of her own. Her first linear hit the goblins right wrist which disarmed it then she was in the home stretch. Easily dispatching it, Asuna turned to Kirito to ask him why she had the face that goblin when she saw him aggro another longsword goblin.

Asuna charged at this one but unlike the last it fell into a defensive stance. Not thinking very much of it, Asuna unleashed a myriad of attacks which ended in one of the going straight through the neck, killing. That one was drastically easier from the last and yet they both seemed like two different entities entirely. Asuna turned to Kirito, half expecting him to aggro another when she saw him walking towards her with a sort of unsure look on his face. It didn't suit him well in her opinion. "They had entirely different styles of attacking." Asuna stated hoping this would relieve him and it did

"Good you saw it. Those were the weakest ones the stronger ones are closer to the middle of the village. But as you said they had completely different styles of attacking and throughout all of my time here I have never seen two goblins with the exact same styles. And not only that but the longer you fight with them the more they adapt to the situation, it's as if they have their own brains." Kirito said excitedly once he reached her.

"So that's what you do here, you train yourself against these goblins, you train up your skill not level." Asuna stated now understanding everything. She also understood why he wouldn't show it to Argo either. The more people who knew about the harder it would be to train here. "That's interesting." Asuna said as she was in thought. "Doubt worry I won't tell anyone but next time, could you not take me to a dungeon."

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Next time…

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter will be up in a week

Have a wonderful day

-Kirk


	168. Birth

November 28, 2023

-Johnny Black, Griselda, Keita-

This was a far to common of occurrences to Johnny to really feel all that threaten, at least comparison to other people. In being an assassin in this world he had a few things done to him on the daily that he would've never expected to ever have happen to him. But after time and time again with help of his extremely harsh superiors he had learned to loss that type of fear. No longer could some actions scare him, especially if they were threatening him, what scared him was the future and what would happen if he left everything alone. He couldn't have that now though, he need to seem like the average killer, the average Laughing Coffin member

"So you're the one who's killing us, man I would have thought it to be someone like The Black Swordsman not a lowly mid level player." Johnny forced through quite possibly the most disgusting laugh he had ever heard and it came out of his mouth. Without even being able to see the players face he had known he hit a nerve. Thanks to his extensive knowledge from being the lead information specialist he knew just about every emotion in the book and the one this player was showing was anger. The spear on his neck start to shake and he could feel it go deeper and deeper probably to close for comfort.

"Shut up or kill you." The player said through gritted teeth. It was obviously a male player now that he had finally heard the voice. The player's state of dress was not at all helpful in figuring out the gender of the player as it practically covered up most of the body. All the Johnny could actually see was the player's hands which didn't have gloves on them and the player's eyes. Any of the other defining features that player had were covered up by some type of black clothing, oddly enough he look like a Laughing Coffin member with his state of dress.

"Or you know, you could just kill me and get this over with, or are you too afraid of killing another human being." Johnny black stated as he grabbed the players spear. Almost immediately upon his hand hitting the spear the player strengthen his resolve and completely took the situation back into his control. With almost no effort the player knocked him to the ground face first and placed his spear on the back of his neck. The player's skill was something else, Johnny thought it could even rival that of some of the front line members.

"I said SHUT UP!" The player yelled through gritted teeth. Somehow he was able to maintain the level pressure on Johnny's neck at a constant level during this entire exchange. Even though Johnny could tell that his mind was anything but steady right now, the player made all of his movements steady, he had learned to control his emotions. This was rare especially for someone in the place of this player as anyone who was personally hunting down players a killing them must have some reason to do it other than it being the right thing to do. Maybe or maybe not, it was hard to believe that anyone did anything without any gains since he had spent about a year surrounded by murderers, thieves, and psychopaths.

Now and only now did Johnny think it to be a good idea to heed to the players request a fall into silence. He had expected this meeting to go a lot better but as he was not yet dead he could effectively say that it could be worse. True not much was worse than beinging pushed on the ground with a spear against your neck but hey there was not much else Johnny could bestow his faith on to so, he had to find a silver lining. It would've gone a lot better but the player above him gave him way too many unaccounted for actions. He did not trust Johnny in slightest and well if he had to have one quality that Johnny would see he would hope that he at least would've had some trust in him.

"We're alone now, get off of him." It was a female voice commanding the other player. This was a voice he knew, the person he had almost died to save, the person he almost died to meet again, Griselda. Without even so much as a sigh of regret the other took his spear off of his neck and allowed him to get up. Instead of doing this, Johnny rolled over so that he was on his back and closed his eyes. If he had to commend the other player on anything it would definitely be on his skills with spear, they could almost rival Zack's skill. "Man, you look like hell, need help." Griselda stated and laughed at the same time.

"You can blame your partner for that one, and me I guess, it's not like I didn't egg him on." Johnny stated as he opened his eyes and held out his hand. Griselda grabbed it and pulled him back onto his feet. They were in a cave with barely any lights, while not being opportune it was still safe and concealed and that's what they needed for this conversation. Both of the players in front of him had taken off their masks so he could see their faces for the first time. He vaguely recognize the male player from where he didn't not know. Griselda however had changed a couple of her features from the last time he had seen her. Both her hair and eyes were colored black along with he skin tone be several colors lighter.

"We if I am going to blame him you should at least know his name, this is Keita. Keita meet Johnny Black." Griselda said as she motioned for them to shake hands. Obviously, Johnny was a little hesitant on shaking hands with someone who well less than a minute ago had a spear to his neck. However, Keita did not seem to have the same thought process as he immediately held out his hand to Johnny. After a couple of seconds they shook hands, gently not as hard as businessmen would do then let go. "Now Johnny why did you go out of your way to meet us?" Griselda asked, almost immediately turning her soft voice into a stern one.

"Why are you going out of your way to kill the Laughing Coffin members. If you fail and reveal your face then you will be hunt and not because you're killing them but because they have a contract on you, one they had thought was completed." Johnny said as he moved closer to her but he couldn't get to close as Keita's spear stopped him in his tracks, Keita still didn't trust him. Stepping back he glared at Keita who return his glare with a look that basically told him to back off. "I thought you were going to wait a while before you started to do things." Johnny said.

"Well I was going to wait half a year before I started to you know, live but as it turns out not doing anything is kind of boring. I meet Keita here who told that his whole entire guild had just died and we became fast friends. After telling him what happened with you and my assassination attempt he said we should start killing off members of the guild so we did and we're quite successful at it, we taken out thirteen as of right now." Griselda said as she leaned up against the wall and put her hands on her head, relaxing.

"Now tell me why I shouldn't kill you right here and right now. I know exactly who you are Johnny Black. We have done our research on Laughing Coffin and know that aside from Prince of Hell and Zaza you are the longest term member they have. In addition I also know you broke Prince of Hell out of captivity after he was caught. Present to me your story of why I shouldn't could you." Keita said with much resentment in voice. It was obvious that even though he had helped Griselda he was a liability to their plans, a liability that could lead both of them to their deaths.

"Kill me, rid me of this nightmare. I have made some terrible mistakes in my time in the game. I accepted that I would likely die as a result of my actions a long time ago. But I'll tell you this right now, even though you have kill a few members of Laughing Coffin, it still has over seventy members and they are still growing. You'll need more than a team of two to take down this guild, you'll need all the help you can get." Johnny stated as he bowed to the point where Keita could swiftly move his spear and kill him with one easy motion.

He waited for a couple of seconds and he heard whispering coming from the two players in front of him. Raising his head he could tell that they were conversing at what they should do about him and the apparently new found information he had told them. This information he had assumed that they already had as it was exactly a secret that they had a ton of members and that even more people were requesting access into the guild. "What do you propose we do then." Griselda said as she walked towards Johnny. If he wanted to kill he could, Keita was too far away from them to intervene, she trusted him.

"Get the front lines involved, they have the numbers and the power to take them down not to much mention the fact that some of them have lost friends to Laughing Coffin. Contact a player name Kazuma in The Knights of the Blood Oath, he is the one currently leading the charge against Laughing Coffin. Then I would suggest you to get a spy into Laughing Coffin, someone to tell you where their base is at. I would suggest going after Lux, from what I can tell she is not loyal to Laughing Coffin I knows all of their hideouts while I only know a couple." Johnny told them his combination of ideas that could be the foundation to a plan.

"We'll take that under advisement, bye Johnny Black." Keita stated as he walked out of the cave.

"Names Alanza, pleasure working with." Griselda stated as she raised her hand for Johnny to shake. He did so and Griselda turned and left him in the cave alone. Sitting down on the ground he thought about what happened, what if he died there, would it have made any difference?

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Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

If you have any concerns or questions please tell me

Next chapter will be here in a few

Have a great day

-Kirk


	169. Bollix

November 30, 2023

-Johnny Black and Lux-

Well, two times a charm, right? At least that's what Johnny was going to keep on telling himself especially if he had a blade to his throat. This time it felt like he could actually die as the blade was pushed against his neck far further than people usually did it and it the real world Johnny had no doubt it would most likely draw blood though he had never been in a situation like this back in the real world. "Well isn't nice to meet you too Lux, who has been?" Johnny stated with a nonchalance that was usually not paired up with a near death experience.

"I would say I am doing better than you are but considering this is taking time out of my day I am quite annoyed, you're lucky it was me tailing and not someone else." Lux stated as she kept her one handed longsword against Johnny's neck. Johnny did suppose he was lucky to have Lux catch him but he had assumed that Lux would indeed be the one to catch him. Using what he called his superior intellect he had assumed that Lux would take it upon herself to investigate the killers and thus they would run into each other. Though to be fair it was quite reckless of him to do so as he had so far been assaulted twice for this endeavor.

"If you consider this lucky than I am flattered." Johnny stated as he patted the sword that was pressed against his thoughts twice. This made Lux immediately stiffen, either she had not wanted Johnny to die which was completely within the realm of possibility or she had thought he was going to try and take the sword off his neck. The latter was actually quite close to what Johnny had thought of doing as this action was a trial run, to see if he could actually attempt to disarm Lux. "You know, most players use more of a lax grip on their blade as if they grip it two strongly for too long it makes their hand loss more strength over time." Johnny stated as he stared quite comfortably at Lux.

"Really." Lux said as she stared at her hand for a couple of seconds. Johnny assumed that she was wondering if his advice was something worth following. Though he did have to admit that Lux stopping decide if his advice was sound was a little disheartening, he did teach her everything he knew and more. And know she had to go and insult him by not taking his advice, he knew Lux had some nerve but never this much. To be fair she probably did have the nerve as she had enough resolve to put a blade on his throat. "Where did you learn that?" Lux questioned with a curious look.

"After fight for you life you pick up on things, even if I am not a sword user like yourself." Johnny stated as he motioned to the dagger that was on his waist. They both looked at for a second then returned their eyes back to each other. Stage one of his plan was now in action. There was no doubt in Johnny's mind that what was going on in Lux's mind was about various ways to disarm him of his dagger. Of course he would have to play this carefully as a simple slip up would most likely mean certain death and though he had made peace with dying he really wanted to she how far Keita and Griselda would get on their path of vengeance. Lux took a slow approach and used her left hand to take his dagger. As Johnny didn't make any attempt to stop it she was successful. "Now was that really necessary." Johnny stated with a hint of sarcasm.

"If the blade on you neck was any indication whatsoever, yes." Lux stated with much more blunt realness than Johnny had been expecting. They had definitely change from their time as master and apprentice. Though both of them never really trusted each other Johnny hoped that they at least had some resemblance of trust or what passed for trust in Laughing Coffin. Obviously being proven wrong, Johnny made face that was supposed to tell Lux that he was hurt with her last statement. "Stop that, I know you expected that answer." Lux stated with real annoyance.

"You caught me." Johnny said as he raised his hands and put them behind his head. This time Johnny felt the blade shudder ever so slightly. Of course she still didn't trust him, as most Laughing Coffin members knew you never trust anyone in that guild. While Killing each other was frowned upon it was not unheard of inside the guild, all you need to do was not be caught. That was easier said than done as with the eight or so information specialist it was hard to find a place that they didn't have eyes. Lux knew more than most not to trust anyone even the person who taught her not to trust anyone. "Now, you wanted to yell at me right, you should probably start before you slip up and chop my head off." Johnny said with a grin.

"Yeah, I'd rather not be yelling at the wall where you dissolved into shards." Lux started with an equally vicious grin. "Now firstly, you are an idiot. I sincerely want to know if you have streets smarts at all I mean, not only did you fail your first killing mission actively helped her hide and then you told who wanted her dead. If you didn't think that would lead to some sort of revenge you should start spending your time around people. If someone you thought was your best friend your significant other tried to kill what would you do, you'd at the very least make their life a living hell." Lux stated as he left hand counted to one.

"Secondly, what were you think, did you keep tabs are her, no. Did you even think about keeping tabs on her, no. To think I was taught by someone who makes such easy mistakes as those is ridiculous. The least you could have done was friend her but no you don't even know what her names was. Use your head. If I had a liability that most likely would end up killing in the end I would like to make sure it was doing anything to stupid. But don't worry if we compare what she was doing to yourself she would literally be doing everything right. Use your head!" Lux said as she wack the back of his head.

"And lastly after everything you have done mistakes and all, you try to find her. Granted you at least were somewhat stealthy about it, if I had not been following your trail I wouldn't have noticed. At least check to see you were not being followed after figured out your style it was painfully easy to follow you. If it had been any other player following you, the result would have been certain death so you're lucky that I at least want to get something out of you before you bite the dust, unlike everyone else." Lux stated with a bit of a bite to her words.

"So what do you want to know?" Johnny asked he lowered his hands his head. All in all he had been expecting that lecture for a while now as he knew he didn't exactly have the most sound ideas when concerning Griselda and their situation. Well maybe he was over selling them just a bit, they weren't sound at all they had cracks all along the seams and barely anything was holding them together. Johnny knew from the start it was a bad idea and as time went on it continued to get worse and worse. But if he died here he did not regret it as at least it made a difference in this world.

"I have only one question of you and if I believe your answer then I will let you go but do not tell me anything besides that answer." Lux stated as gripped her sword even harder. So she had not intend on killing him, well that seems better than he could have ever wished for. Though she would probably be resigning him to fate that meant he would be tortured by the rest of their guild, he would still live to see the light of another day. Johnny had to find a silver lining somewhere. "Who is the male player?" Lux asked him.

"He goes by Keita, I don't recognize him from anywhere but he wields a spear." Johnny stated maybe too much information. They stared at each other for a couple of seconds before Lux loosen her grip on her sword and took it off Johnny's neck. The information that he gave had just let him pass through this experience. While Johnny could still tell that Lux was far from trusting him, she at least trusted his information and that was enough for Johnny at the moment. "Until we meet again." Johnny stated with a curt nod as he walked away from Lux.

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AHH, Lux is fun to write

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter will be up in a week

Have a wonderful week

-Kirk


	170. Inquest

December 2, 2023

-Kirito and Asuna-

"Bonjour, comment vas-tu?" Asuna asked as she sat down at the table across from Kirito. This time Kirito had seemed to at least take Asuna's advice under advisement as they weren't in a dungeon. They were on floor forty four and in one of its many restaurants. In particular this one was named _Le Bistro de Nic_ e or restaurant of Nice, if her translation was correct. It had been a decent amount of time since she had used french in any sort of way and this was at least a chance to brush up on the romantic language. Or maybe not if Kirito's confused face told her anything. "It means how are you doing." Asuna sighed as she sat down.

"Not bad, how about yourself?" Kirito said as he grabbed his water a took a drink after he stopped talking. Asuna found it interesting how Kirito could from utterly confused to seemingly in the know in the matter of seconds. Somehow he was able to flip from one idea to another with insane processing speed, well at least more than she could. It also seemed as though he wasn't scared or afraid of whatever this was going wrong. Kirito seemed confident but not enough to make the people around him seem less confident, a perfect level of confidence for the situation he was currently in.

"Somehow I am doing perfectly fine." Asuna stated as she to took a drink of water. Kirito, it seemed had already ordered drinks before she had gotten there. That of course meant he had been there for a bit of time most likely a couple of minutes, somewhere around five seemed correct. And here she was trying to sound smarter than him, such an idiot. If Asuna could've smacked her head with Kirito seeing it she would have but unfortunately she could not. However there was something Asuna could do and that was actually start a conversation. "I thought you knew some from french?" Asuna asked.

"Well, sort of. I never learned it myself but my… Cousin tried to teach herself when she was like five and kinda failed miserably. I believe I picked up on more french than she did. I know a bunch of random words that really don't help me understand the language whatsoever." Kirito said with a bit of a chuckle at certain parts. This brought what seemed to be a genuine smile to Kirito's face and if Asuna was given an opinion she would say that is the best smile she had seen in forever. "Where did you learn french, you seem a lot more knowledgeable than I?" Kirito asked, not losing the smile that had fabricated itself in the last couple of moments.

"Unlike you I actually learned french or did, it has been around three years since I've used it so I quite rusty at the language right now. My Mother thought it was a good idea amongst other things to teach me a language, she allowed me to pick which language I wanted to learn. After trying to choose Japanese I choose french as I already know I decent amount of English even with the classes. She gave me a tutor and I was fluent in french some time ago." Asuna stated as she played with her hands. She hoped that it didn't sound like she was bragging all that much.

"That's awesome, so you're fluent in french, learn something knew everyday." Kirito said with a cheerful tone in his voice. Inside her mind, Asuna sighed, either that was extremely fake or she made it passed a hurdle and survived. Thankfully at least from what she could tell, Kirito wasn't that jealous type and that was just fine for Asuna. They both ordered some food, Asuna had ordered a french sandwich while Kirito order pasta. Not every french if Asuna could say so herself and she had already made to tell Kirito that too. "What else did your mother teach you?" Kirito asked once the waiter had left the table.

This made Asuna immediately sigh, how in the world did Kirito hit a nerve already, wasn't she supposed to be the one asking questions, not him. Maybe she could just lie and immediately ask him a question. No, if she lied then she would be hypocrite when expecting him to answer truthfully, maybe she could just not answer or answer with vague and interpretable words. No, she would be straight and blunt to the point, that's what she was good at being, right, well she was about to find out. "Most of the other classes she gave me were a lot less fun, stuff like finances and tradition, a personal least favorite of mine was what my mother could, To be a Proper Wife." Asuna stated with not a lot of emotion.

"Your mother sounds intense, remind me not to get on her bad side." Kirito said with a laugh. This reaction made her take a step back, mentally that is as she had not expected it. Kirito's reaction was just to not say anything specific on the matter but make a dull joke. Most people would have just apologized for something that had no control over but not him, he seemed to know that his apologies did not only not change anything but were also unwanted. "So are you going to ask me any questions or are you going to let me ask questions until our food gets here." Kirito stated as he leaned forward in his seat.

"Well if you say it like that then it feels as if I have to." Asuna stated as she took a drink of her water. This made Kirito go off on how he was sorry and that's not what he meant and then just constantly tripping over his words. Asuna laughed and waved it away, he may have terrible word choice but his intentions were fine and that's all that mattered. Knowing his place, Kirito stopped talking and waited for Asuna to ask him her first in most likely a long line of questions. "Did you live with your cousin?" Asuna asked, it wasn't a question she thought would ask but one that did peak her interest.

"Yeah, I live with her, my aunt and my uncle, though he isn't around all that much as he has a job that keeps him traveling." Kirito stated without any hesitation, though Asuna could tell from his eyes that he was at least somewhat hesitant. Without much thought Asuna decided that she wouldn't push the subject much further but it seemed Kirito did not have the same idea. "My parents died when I was every young and ever since then the raised me like their very own, I am grateful for them." Kirito stated quite stolidly but Asuna could tell that the emotions were just hidden instead of not present.

"Now it makes sense that your cousin taught you french." Asuna half laughed as she lean forward on the table also. That made sense and was basically what Asuna had been expecting for an answer. Since neither of his parents could take care of him he was hand off to be family in this case his aunt. Asuna didn't really know how to react to it nonetheless, but she improvised. Giving him a caring smile that hopefully didn't feel too much like an I'm sorry smile, Asuna moved on to her next question. "Where do you know Keita from?" Asuna asked Kirito.

Almost immediately Asuna knew she had hit a nerve just off of the look a Kirito's face. It was a look that she have never seen on Kirito's face. Most of the time he was eager and willing to go into battle and get his hands dirty but now it seemed as though he wanted to run away like what she had said was something he never want to think about. Just as Asuna was about to say he didn't have to answer, Kirito started to speak. "I was in a guild with him, he was the leader and things didn't end very well, I didn't tell him about my level and that I was a beater and he never forgave after the rest of the members died, he left the guild for met to dissolve it." Kirito stated with obvious cracks in his voice and tone.

Asuna didn't know what to do so she improvised and grabbed Kirito hands and looked at him. Without even saying anything, it calm Kirito back down to his usual stolid face and Asuna was grateful. Somehow she had managed to hit two nerves in a row and she would need to ask something simple to get the conversation back on the right path. Asuna thought of a couple of simple questions, age, home, etc. but she settled on something else. "Are you prepared for the duel?" Asuna asked much more tentatively then she would've liked.

"I don't know, but I promise you that I'll at least put on a good show." Kirito stated with a smile. This made Asuna smile too, she liked looking at Kirito a lot more when he was happy rather stolid or even worse, sad. However she couldn't help but wonder what would happen if he lost the duel. Of course as his friend she would root for him but him losing has it's benefits also. If he lost then they would be in the same guild, they would be closer, maybe that was just selfish but for her the duel was a win win situation no matter which way it went.

"Good luck then, I will watching the duel as no doubt most people will be watching you also." Asuna stated as she retraced her hands back to her side of the table. While she didn't want to move her hands away, they had more than overstayed their welcome and she really didn't want to intrude. Well, maybe she did want to intrude but she would do it with questions rather than with her hands, it seemed better that way. "You knew Sinon in real life, didn't you?" Asuna had been waiting to ask this question for a while, she wanted to hear it out of Kirito mouth, not Argo's or Sinon's.

"Yes, she was a year behind me in school but she jumped a year recently, I helped her in a class but we really weren't all that close. We may qualify for acquaintances based off the time we spent together in the real world. Coper was a lot more of a friend than she was in the real world in fact." Kirito stated as he played with his cup, it was now empty. Asuna would've been happy with a simple yes but this just felt much better, he hadn't been guarded with her about the real world at all in the conversation, in fact he was more guard about events that happened inside the game. "Oh, food." Kirito stated as he instantly sat up a prepared to eat his pasta. While Asuna would've preferred to keep on talking, she had to admit that a french sandwich sound pretty good right about now.

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Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

French is fun

Next chapter will be up in a few

Have a great day  
-Kirk


	171. Improve

December 3, 2023

-Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Argo, Godfree, Argo, Silica, Klein, Heathcliff, Ran, Keita, Griselda, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

"First of all, I would like to thank you all for coming. Never in a million years could I have ever expected some many players would come at the request of my word." Keita said quite official as he bowed. As usual, Griselda followed in suit. They had decided before the meeting that Keita would do most of the talking as out of the two of them, he had the most confidence. At one time she had the confidence for something like this but for right now she would rather not chance it on something so important. This meeting could change the fate of so many people, it wasn't something to take lightly.

"I Keita, along with Alanza want to ask a favor of you all, the front lines. Something I hope that will change the game for the better." Keita stated once again with a bow and Griselda mimicked his actions the same as last time. So far everything was going as according to their plan. Basically their plan was to first start off with formalities. While gamers aren't the most formal of players didn't mean that they couldn't be buttered up with formalities. This part of the plan was her's and if she had to say herself, it was quite crucial. It essentially was their first impression for the vast majority of players and first impressions are what count the most in a scenario like this.

"We would like for you all, the front lines to take an active role in fighting the red guild known as Laughing Coffin." Keita asked as he remained more fired up than Griselda had ever seen him. When the had first meet each other Keita wasn't exactly the definition of healthy in fact if Griselda hadn't talked to him he might have killed himself. She could tell he was going through something big and she could tell that he couldn't go through it alone. However she could also tell that he had been trying to deal with it and to avail. It had pained her to see a player so distraught and dead that she had to try and help even if it did break her cover.

As she watched him now she could tell that the decision she had made on impulse had paid off in spades. What he had gone through was something she wouldn't even wish on her husband, what he went through was worse than anything. To have everything taken away from you and betrayed by someone you trusted with your life, it hurt and destroyed him. But now none of that boy was left, in his place was a man doing what he believed to be right, campaigning for something he knew had to be done, no matter the costs. Her decision had payed off and she couldn't be more grateful for it.

"Why do you think we would help you?" This questions came from what Griselda presumed to be one of the leaders, at least from the looks of their uniform. The player was in white and red which seemed to be the two colors of one of the major guilds as many players had these colors on. Like most players, this player seemed hardened and older than she was, maybe early to late thirties but not much past that. She already didn't like him but if he was one of the leaders then she would have to at least be friendly to him even if he did ask a stupid question.

"We would personally like to believe that for the good of the game as a whole, you will help us take out this threat. By our calculations they are responsible for over five hundreds across Aincrad, and that's only the known ones. In addition to that I know that some of your friends and allies have died to the guild, The Holy Dragon Alliance is a prime example of this. To not help us extinguish this threat would breed more deaths all over Aincrad, and that's not something to be taken lightly." Keita stated with a firm and brisk tone that lacked malice of any kind.

This as expected lead all of the players in front of them into a deep thought. Nothing Keita had said had been targeting or fear tactics, it was the plain a simple yet brutal would've rather had more of a diplomatic approach along with showing them a world without player killers but Keita had persuaded her otherwise. In his own words, it was wishful thinking that would make players believe that a perfect world existed or could exist. This statement was met without any resistance on Griselda's part. It was indend smart to remind them of the terrors that existed in the world as it stands and the fact that only they could change it.

"May I ask why you have taken upon yourself to accomplish this task?" A girl asked Keita. Griselda actually knew this player or rather she knew of the player. The front lines were full of a bunch of well known players. Everyone in the game knew of The Black Swordsman, The Twin Brains were also quite well known and The Living Legend was something to be feared but none had anything on The Lightning Flash Asuna. From what Griselda had heard on her she was the fastest player in the game and was responsible for all of the DPS players on the front lines. Also that she had quite the temper against incompetent players. It was a gift to be in there presence to say the very least.

"We believe that the threat of Laughing Coffin should be taken out as fast as possible. As of right now the fight against them isn't anywhere near where we believe it should be and wish to make it different. We volunteer ourselves to lead the charge against Laughing Coffin as no one else has taken up the position yet. Our power and strength may not be enough to take out Laughing Coffin but with your numbers and players to bolster us along with our conviction, Laughing Coffin will not be able to see the light of day." Keita stated with yet more confidence than he had beforehand.

"So what you're saying is, that the fight against Laughing Coffin isn't up to your standards, so you are volunteering yourselves to lead it?" Another player stated, another one that Griselda knew but was not common knowledge. The player in question was Kazuma, brother of on of Laughing Coffin's elite members. From what Griselda and Keita could tell he was the one leading the effort against Laughing Coffin. In her own words he was fighting a major problem by himself with little help. The only credit he had to his name was establishing a jail on floor obviously need some help in the fight or in would not ever finish.

"Unfortunately, yes, there is no one, besides ourselves going out there and hunting the players. There is no one trying to find out where their bases are and we can tell you that leaving them to die off won't work. They are gaining members faster than we can kill them, they have just about twenty shy of one hundred players, tell me how do you all plan on facing Laughing Coffin while just wait and watch them grow and grow. It's unsettling for me and I can defend myself, imagine that you were one of the lower level players and you were attacked by Laughing Coffin. You would die, no question about it. While we may not be able to protect them for Laughing Coffin we can certainly make Laughing Coffin pay for it." Keita stated as for the first time he let emotions show through.

This was exactly what Griselda was worried about when they decided to let keita do all of the talking. Keita had grown way too attached to the issue and even though it didn't hit home for him personally that didn't stop him from feeling for all of the players who have lost lives to Laughing Coffin. While he had be good a presenting himself as a well composed player he wasn't anything but that with the matter at hand. If she was to describe Keita with one word about this topic, there was no doubt that in her mind that the perfect word was passionate. He wanted nothing more to see Laughing Coffin wiped off the map for good.

"Thank you Keita, Alanza, we will take your proposal under advisement. I will personally get back to you a couple of days after we defeat floor boss fifty two. Now, if you would kindly leave, we have a boss battle meeting to get underway with." One of the Knights of the Blood Oath leaders stated curtly. Griselda turned around and grabbed Keita's arm to drag him, if necessary out of the room. Only based off her intuition, did she know that with every fiber of his being, Keita wanted to spill everything right then and there, make everyone help them but she also knew that if they were to get the front lines into a more active role on this then they would have to patient yet a little pushy. Keita unfortunately, tended to be more than a little pushy.

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Thank you all for reading this chapter

Maybe Laughing Coffin will be taken out soon

Next chapter will be out in a week

Have a wonderful week

-Kirk


	172. Interlocution

December 9, 2023

-Kirito and Asuna-

"Are you ready?" Asuna asked Kirito. They were currently standing right outside of the arena at which Kirito was going to have a duel in. While Kirito hadn't been abnormally early, he had gotten there ten minutes early to ensure that he wouldn't miss it. Well, that wasn't entirely true, Asuna blew him up with messages until he caved and said he would get there earlier than planned. Asuna had been expecting for him to be there twenty to thirty means early but wasn't entirely disappointed to see him come with only ten minutes till the duel. She had been hoping to have a longer chat but some encouragement before the duel would have to suffice.

"If I said yes would you believe me." Kirito asked as he stopped walking a leaned against a wall. His tone did not have the air or aura of confidence that it usual had, it was surrounded more by an unsure feeling. This made Asuna suspect that he wasn't all that confident in the duel for some reason or another yet Asuna couldn't believe that Kirito would experience feelings such as those. She had seen him take on the boss alone and live to tell the tale, even if he did beat himself the hell up in the process. Surely a floor boss was a lot more intimidating than Heathcliff, even if his health had never dipped into the yellow.

"You are unsure about this." Asuna stated not able to keep it to herself. This made Kirito, who had been looking at his feet, shot his head up to look at her, as if in alarm, as if he didn't know it himself. Maybe the rumors of Heathcliff's strength had been stretch so far by the time that they had reached Kirito that he had be afraid of what he had gotten himself into. However that couldn't be it as he had seemed so confident when he had accepted the duel in the first place. So what had gotten into him now? It just didn't make sense to Asuna.

"Maybe I have over estimated myself in trying to challenge him, hell that last time I dueled a player I lost, miserably. If I lose then my way of life in the game is over, done for and I have to join the guild. It's just a lot to take in." Kirito stated as he used the wall to slowly slide to the ground into a sitting position. He seemed so small, so powerless at this moment that it made Asuna wonder how in the world he was The Black Swordsman in the first place. But Kirito wasn't just The Black Swordsman he was so much more than the title. The title was born of other people but he had crafted himself into the player née person he was today.

"Come on Kirito, stand up." Asuna said as she held out her hand for Kirito to grab. When he didn't, Asuna knelt down and put her arm underneath Kirito's. With a great heave, much more than Asuna would've liked to use, she had got Kirito to stand up. "You are a lot heavier than you look." Asuna stated as placed a hand over her chest to regain her breath. "Now, trust me when i say this, you can take Heathcliff on maybe even beat him just be smart, okay?" Asuna said as she grabbed both of Kirito's shoulders. "And even if you lose you won't be only in the guild, you'll have me." Asuna stated with a little bit too much excitement in her voice.

"I won't be joining your guild come on now, have faith in me." Kirito stated with a grin as he pulled his shoulders and chin up into a more confident place. Now this was more like Kirito, or more like The Black Swordsman. He seemed more powerful, more confident, more like himself than a few seconds ago and this was made all the more apparent when he pulled out his sword. Now seeing it for the second time it looked so much more in place in Kirito's hands. The blade wasn't completely black, bar for a thick red line red line in the center that eventually formed it's way into the hilt. Just above the hilt as the blade start to get wider was a hole, obviously there for design purposes but it made the blade stand out. And lastly the handle was completely black, blending it to Kirito's glove perfectly.

"That's an impressive sword."Asuna stated as she watched Kirito throw a couple of practice slashes. It was clear that he had the strength to handle the sword unlike herself. This made Asuna wonder what exactly Kirito's strength stat was. While her strength stat wasn't her highest stat, that was reserved for speed, it held a firm second place. In order for Kirito to wield it he would've had to have a strength stat that was even more invested than her speed. Kirito grinned a threw the sword into the ground so it standed up, perpendicular to the ground and Kirito materialized yet another sword.

"Then this one will impress you even more." Kirito stated as he had her the sword he had just materialized. Asuna noted that Kirito didn't exactly have the grace that he had when wielding the other sword when he handed it off to Asuna. Upon contact with the sword, Asuna almost dropped it. While having being expecting a sword that was on par weight wise with the one Lizbeth forged, the weight that she felt now was completely unexpected. Looking down at the sword it was at least two times as heavy as the last and was incredibly simple. Much like Kirito it was completely black save for the silver edge and silver design along the hilt. The hilt itself only guarded half of the the blade, which was an interesting choice for the sword. "It was the last attack bonus for floor fifty." Kirito stated as he grabbed Lizbeth sword and started to twirl it around.

"Wow, that's…" Asuna was at a loss for words as she had just looked at the stats of the sword. They were on par with that of the one Lizbeth forged excepted for one stat or rather requirement for usage. Each sword or equipment had certain stat requirements. A shield or a sword usually required a strength requirement while daggers and her rapier had a speed requirement. Usually the requirements were fair but this most likely nothing but that, Asuna suspected that Kirito wouldn't have that strength stat for a while while someone like herself may only get a strength to wield it order floor ninety. "Can you wield it?" Asuna asked as she gave him the sword back with some difficulty.

"Oh, havens no, I say I'll be able to wield this thing in about half a year if that." Kirito said as he sent the sword back into his inventory. This question from Asuna had made him chuckle and Asuna did the same, that weapon was ridiculous in every way, including the requirements at which it wanted from the player. Asuna was glad to her the laugh come out of Kirito's mouth even if it was from one of her questions. The fact that he had laughed at her question had made her happy rather than slightly annoyed. Even if she had the feeling of annoyance pop up it was quickly overshadowed by the feeling of happiness after she had heard Kirito to laugh. "Thanks for that Asuna." Kirito said as he grabbed his sword off the ground and put it in a proper sheath.

"Don't mention it." Asuna said as she lead against the wall opposite from where Kirito was. She felt related. There was no other way to put it, she felt related. Like she could do anything like she could into that arena and take on Heathcliff for Kirito. No, maybe not that but something like that, she felt as though she could take on the world. She loved this feeling, this feeling of absolute joy and content. That was something she wouldn't change for the world, that was something that Kirito had given her. She loved the fact that she had just installed a feeling of confidence back into Kirito, that she had helped him out, it simply felt great. "Now go out there and meet your adoring fans.

"I think I have more enemies than fans." Kirito said with a chuckle as he pushed himself off of the wall and straighten his jacket. Reach over his head, Kirito attached the sheath to his back then turned to face Asuna. He had the aura of confidence that made him even though he was young look like a fearsome foe. This was a player not be trifled with and yet Asuna knew better than that. The Black Swordsman was a player renowned all across Aincrad for his skill as a beater but that's not who the person in front of her was. The person in front of her was first and foremost her friend. "Do you think I'm ready?" Kirito asked Asuna as he stood straight as ever.

"You were born ready Kirito." Asuna said as she put on of her hands on Kirito's shoulder. They looked at each other for a couple of seconds before Asuna spoke again. "Now go out there and meet your adorning fans. Strike fear into the people who are you enemies and don't go down without a fight." Asuna stated as she turned him around and pushed him forward. Kirito turned around on last time and looked as for a couple of seconds before sending her a smile. Turning around, Kirito left to go into the arena with only a peace sign to say goodbye with. Without a single doubt in her mind, Asuna wanted Kirito to win.

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Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Some more Asuna and Kirito fluff

Next chapter will be up in a few

Have a good day

-Kirk


	173. Involved

December 9, 2023

-Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Argo, Godfree, Silica, Klein, Heathcliff, Ran, Keita, Griselda, Lux, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

"This is quite a turnout." Kirito stated once he got into the middle of the arena. He was a couple of paces away from Heathcliff and it was about the distance they would most likely start their duel from. As he had suspected this duel was probably going to be the event of the month with the amount of people that had showed up. Most of the fronts lines were there along with what Kirito suspected to be mid level hopefuls and the low level fan clubs. Kirito even say a good number of players deck in what Kirito assumed to be their imation of Kirito's attire, all black. If he were to where all pink would they copy him?

"I agree, it's not everyday that the see two legends duel off against each other." Heathcliff stated as he to looked around at the players in the stadium stands. Kirito, in his bliss had momentarily forgotten that Heathcliff had been standing there. This told Kirito one thing, he was ready for what was to come. While his mind wasn't completely focused at the battle at hand, it was sufficiently calm and a calm head was what would lead him to victory. Emotions, he told himself would lead to unpredictability against himself and that was anything but good.

"Not to sound rude, but can we start this, small talk isn't really my thing." Kirito stated with a small amount of dissonance in his voice. The long he would stand here getting stared at by way too many people the more likely nerves would get to him mess him his calm head. In addition to that being stared at by a bunch of people he has neither seen nor talk to once makes him feel slightly weirded out. Instead of Heathcliff speaking, a commentator's voice said that the duel would be starting momentarily. Kirito wonder just who the commentator was but he had been stopped in the middle of this thought by the dual request screen. Without a second thought Kirito clicked accept and saw the timer ahead indicate that the battle would begin in one minute.

"Best of luck to you." Heathcliff said as he pulled his sword out from behind his shield. This was more a formality than anything as Kirito knew that he wanted more than anything to win this duel, to show that The Black Swordsman was a part of his guild. This made Kirito wonder who exactly Heathcliff was as a person, he always seemed calm a collected yet there was something off about him that Kirito couldn't really place. However, that was neither here nor there as it wouldn't help him defeat Heathcliff only pure skill would do that. Kirito nodded back as if to tell Heathcliff the same.

Kirito readied himself for what was about to come, for the flurry of blades clashing against each other, making a septical for all but themselves to watch. It would be beautiful for everyone else to watch while they could only hope to finish it quickly. Reaching behind his head, Kirito unattached his sheath from his back and pulled out his new sword. He heard gasps and mutterings of excitement come out of the stands when they saw his sword. It was no doubt something that look powerful yet magnificent, Kirito would have to thank Lizbeth after this. Gripping the sword in his left hand, Kirito cast aside the sheath and readied himself.

Left arm out in front, angled as if to defend anything that came. Right arm off to the side holding his sword away from his body as if he was afraid of the blade. He knew that to the untrained eye it would look as though he had left almost everything susceptible to attacks but he knew that Heathcliff could easily see through this facade. With his knees bent, this stance was perfect for throwing one into a number of attacks against its foe and if attack the sword would be bale to black most if not all attacks that would be sent. It was a perfect stance for what Kirito was about to do, he was about to attack.

Kirito heard the sound of the one minute timer ending and he ran at Heathcliff with not a second to waste. With both the speed and strength advantage along with attacking first, Kirito easily positioned himself in the controlling role. However, unlike most foes Heathcliff did not seem as though he wanted that role. It seemed as though Heathcliff prefered to defend his foes attacks rather than launch some himself and he was doing this quite well. Each of Kirito's linears, horizontals, verticals, slashes and stabs were all either blocked by his sword or shield or missed completely.

This did not phase Kirito as he had been expecting this, an impregnable defense. But no matter what it is everything cracks under pressure and now all Kirito had to do was to find out how it cracked. Throwing himself into yet more attacks he felt himself grow to be faster, the sword that he was holding was a part of him. True it was a long metal death stick but it was still a part of him and with every clang of metal Kirito felt it shake and he could tell that he was slowly getting faster and faster. And then his momentum was completely stopped. Heathcliff had used his shield to deflect Kirito off of him a get in hopefully a game winning strike. That however didn't happen. Upon realizing that he had gotten hit by a shield, Kirito hit the ground and jump upwards in the air backwards. This prevented all but Heathcliff's sword hitting his left arm.

"You had to hit my left arm." Kirito said as he fell back in his stance. They could hear the commentator exclaim on Heathcliff's skill but neither really paid it any mind, that was for entertainment purposes they really weren't being entertained at this moment. Kirito watched Heathcliff as he fell back into his stance also. His way of fighting had been honed to defeat enemies like him in particular and this just made it all the more complicated for Kirito. But it all boiled down to one thing, he need to get passed the shield and to do that he would have to try something different.

Unpredictability, that was what was going to win him the battle, he had to be unpredictable yet precise in a way that Heathcliff could not and that itself was a challenge. No, he was overthinking this. It didn't matter about Heathcliff's unique skill or anything else, all that mattered as that shield, without the shield the was no way he would be able to face the power and speed Kirito had. Gripping his sword, Kirito calmed his emotions. Emotions were unpredictable but unlike what he was about to do they would most likely lead to his death if he used them. Kirito couldn't control them so it was dangerous for Kirito to wield. He needed to be level head and emotions in no way help that.

Kirito jumped or more of a leap to be precise but it was all the same. Instead of his usual breakneck blitz at Heathcliff he pounced on him much like a cat would do. In the background he could hear the commentator exclaiming for his jump but Kirito had other things to worry about. At the end of the jump he clashed swords with Heathcliff much in the same fashion that he had down the first time but this time he could feel something different. He was just ever so slightly faster this time than last time. It was not something other people could see but something he felt down in his bones. This was what was giving him the advantage in this combat of blades.

About forty attacks in Heathcliff once again tried to shield bash him but Kirito saw and predicted this coming. Using his useless left hand he blocked the shield then his sword wacked it out of the way, and then he went in for a linear. It was short in design but it would bring Heathcliff down to half which would give him the duel and there was no way Heathcliff could block it with his shield and it was too centered to be deflected or misdirected by a sword. And then it happened, as though some had stopped time and moved Heathcliff's shield. Kirito saw a visage of smirk appear on Heathcliff's face and knew he had baited Kirito into an attack that would his sword useless and him defenseless.

Out of the corner of his eye Kirito saw Heathcliff activate a sword skill and knew he made a mistake. A sword skill had the smallest amount of delays but even the fastest sword skill was slowly than a usually attack by the smallest of margins. That was all that Kirito needed, well that and some daring along with a mind that could think of quick way to disengage. Using all of this together, Kirito jumped up and used Heathcliff's shield as a launch pad to propel him away and out of danger.

As he landed on the ground Kirito saw the flash of light that meant Heathcliff's sword skill had just hit nothing. Once again he heard the commentator exclaim over Heathcliff's skill but this time he also heard his skills get commentated one. But none of that matter, what Heathcliff had just pulled off told him one thing, with the shield Heathcliff was unkillable, so all he had to do was disarm him of his shield. To do this he would have to use another ace, one he had been preparing for a while, one that he was confident in. With that in mind Kirito fell into a different stance. Left side facing Kirito with his left arm out lazily in front and his right arm angled so that his sword could rest on his shoulder as he wanted for Heathcliff to attack.

He needed to change the odds and the only way Kirito could think of doing that right now was to bait Heathcliff. Unfortunately however, Heathcliff was smart and knew exactly what Kirito was doing and attempted to bait him too. As much as he wanted to attack Heathcliff, Kirito waited for a full five minutes before Heathcliff finally gave up and attacked him. This was what he needed, Heathcliff on the offensive. First part of his plan was going to take back the controlling role while also transferring the momentum that Heathcliff had built up on to himself.

This was a lot easier than Kirito had expected it to be. All he did was one weighed upwards vertically and he was back in the controlling role with the little momentum Heathcliff built up. This time he felt his sword actually move on it's own as if it was independent from his body but yet he could tell it wasn't. It was being unpredictable as Kirito had set it out to be, as he was using it to be. But this was to lure Heathcliff into a position that he could finally use his ace and then he saw it.

Heathcliff had just wacked his sword and both of their swords had bounced off and backwards while his shield was held close to his chest as it had been done the entire confrontation. Seamlessly and faster than anything Heathcliff could do, Kirito transferred his sword to his left hand and used it to whack Heathcliff's sword even further back. Now Heathcliff was trying to make his shield deflect any incoming attacks the problem was no attack were centered at Heathcliff. The one attack Kirito had down with the sword in his left hand after hitting Heathcliff's sword had disarmed Heathcliff of his shield.

Easily transferring his sword back into his dominate hand, Kirito went on the offensive and disarmed Heathcliff with ease and then went in for the win. He stopped just mere centimeters from heathcliff's neck and retracted his sword. After sticking it in the ground, Kirito held out his hand to shake Heathcliff's. The both did though he could tell that Heathcliff was trying to analyse how he had just lost. Maybe he thought that his unique skill was unbeatable? However none of that matter as he had already won. "Good game, I look forward to fighting alongside you in the front lines." Kirito stated.

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Kirito is OP  
Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapters will be out in a week

Have a large week

-Kirk


	174. Increase

December 10, 2023

-Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Godfree, Silica, Klein, Heathcliff, Ran, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

"So we're facing him again." Tsubaki said as she looked around the boss room. Most of the player were already engaged with what Ran had nicknamed to be the Dragon Menace. This was given to him as each time they faced him he was riding and now she could assume that the dragon they were facing was him. Or at least that's what it had seemed to be as the boss was smarter than the vast majority of other bosses they had faced. Of course there were some exceptional outliers such as the floor twenty and fifty bosses but this one seemed hell bent on also trying to find a way into that group.

"Well if all goes wrong, you could always jumps on it's back." Ran stated as she looked up towards the dragon thing. Tsubaki couldn't really find it in herself to call it a dragon but if it was anything it was that. However it also seemed like it had a bunch of other charactics that didn't seemed as though they were native to dragons. It wings seemed more bat like than anything else, but didn't have the hands at the tips of the wings. In addition to that it hand large over drapping fangs that would go perfectly with the wings. Tsubaki briefly wondered if it had tried to make a dragon bat hybrid but her thoughts turned towards other things.

The dragon was now breathing fire like it had been expected to and the other players were for lack of a better term, scared out of their pants. They were running out in all directions holdings there weapons above their heads as if it could defend against the fire. This made Tsubaki want to facepalm so hard as the player in front of her seemed so pathetic that it made Tsubaki really want to kill them to just ended whatever this was. But most people would frown on that so Tsubaki took the more practical approach. "Aim for it's eyes." Tsubaki yelled back to the ranged players. It it couldn't see then it's ability to shoot fire with accuracy would falter.

Heeding to Tsubaki commands the ranged players aimed for it's eyes and a few of them got hits and needless to say the dragon was mad. Mad enough to take a dive straight towards the ground. Thankfully, since the vast majority of players were still running now got hit by this tactic and it end up doing more damage to the dragon. The dragon seemed to know that it hit nobody as it flew back into the sky and started shooting fire at an increasingly less accurate rate. Sometimes the flames would come mere meters away from players. Other times the flames didn't even make it halfway to the ground much less the players.

"We're going to have to wait this thing out." Tsubaki stated as she ran back to ran. They had been some of the unlucky few that had flames actually reach where they were standing. Ran was looking around at the fellow players and the boss, she was obviously thinking of a way to take it out of the side. Tsubaki had already gone through this thought and came to really just one conclusion. Unless someone jumped up to the boss and knocked it down, it was staying in the air. This conclusion had been met after Tsubaki tried to throw her sword through the boss's wing only for it to bounce off.

"It's wings are impenetrable, right?" Ran asked as she looked towards Tsubaki then the dragon and back again. Not, wanting to have to shout of the noises coming from the other player's scurrying of feet a clanging of weapons, Tsubaki moved towards Ran and affirmed her question. "So unless you want to jump on the back of the dragon we'll have to wait it out then." Ran stated as she looked over to Tsubaki and smirked. To this, Tsubaki scowled and tried to whack ran with the back of her hand. After missing, Tsubaki turned to Ran and laughed.

"What, fourth time's a charm." Tsubaki stated as she looked up towards the boss. It was more vertically than before and looked as if it was trying to catch it's foot on fire. "That seems even more like a suicide mission than before." Tsubaki said looking at the boss. "This dragon seems as though it is trying to remain upright or give off a feeling a being human or something. There isn't many good places to land on the dragon and I don't even know where it's weak point would be." Tsubaki stated as she looked up to the boss and immediately looked away. The fire it was admitting was as bright as the sun.

"It seems like they'll need nothing short of a miracle to get them out of this mess." Ran stated as she looked around to all the other players. They reminded her of stories that she was told in the real world of dragons and how people ran at the sight of them. Nothing seemed to be dignified on how they were running but one thing was certain they looked as though they were running for their life. "Hey, the dragon is using sight and smell to see now, so don't make noise you idiots." Ran yelled out at the scared players. "You know after fifty floors you'd think that they would have some type of backbone." Ran laughed Tsubaki as she put her arms nonchalantly on her head as if she was relaxing.

"Circle the boss, don't crowd up." Tsubaki yelled to the players. They had already made it past the halfway point so most of the frontlines were now under their control. Of course this was to exploit any type of weakness that the boss had and the only thing they had done so far was blind the boss. From what they had figured out so far, the boss had a nearly impenetrable hide along with scales on it most it's body that make weapons bounce off of it, the notably body parts that didn't have these scales were the wings and it's face. "Should I try and break it's wings again?" Tsubaki asked as unsheathed her xiphos.

"No, if any is going to break through it's wings, it's going to be one of archers and they can't even do it." Ran stated as she placed her hand on the ground. Tsubaki had seen Ran do this a number of times beforehand but mostly she used it for tracking movements of mobs not while in a boss room. However Tsubaki did not question it as they both had their own ways of finding weak points in a boss and this one seemed to have made all of their usual tactics null and void. "That's interesting." Ran stated as she stood up and put her hand on her chin, thinking.

"What is it?" Tsubaki asked as she turned her head towards Ran. As of this moment she had literally nothing to go off of. If she really wanted to to die she could always find a way to exploit its lack of defenses around it's face but that just seemed like a little too crazy to make it do able. Even if she manage to get to it's face and not get burned she didn't even know if her sword would be able to pierce the hide yet only to some actual damage to it. If Ran had anything better than run up to the blind, crazy fire breathing dragon with nothing but a sword, Tsubaki really wanted to hear it.

"This boss has a really interesting attack range." Ran stated as she looked towards the players. Tsubaki saw that they were bunched up again, now in more or less four groups, this almost made Tsubaki yell another command yet but Ran stopped her. "The boss is in the center of the room, it doesn't move much at all and when it does, it goes up and down, even since it has been blind. And all of the groups of players are diagonal to the boss instead of being scattered like you want them to be and yet they are not get burned. I hypothise that the boss can only shoot fire in cardinal directions." Ran stated with an aura of accomplishment.

"Oh shoot, you gave me an idea." Tsubaki sighed as she sheathed her sword. "And a dumb one at that. See you on the other side." Tsubaki said as she ran at the boss from a diagonal path. As Ran had suspected the boss didn't shoot Tsubaki with any fire, nor did it even so much as try. Maybe it couldn't see her or maybe the bat dragon hybrid really just messed up a lot of things. Nevertheless Tsubaki got right underneath the boss and looked upwards. The boss was quite a ways away, it would take a couple of jumping skills to get up there but nothing Tsubaki hadn't done before.

All of the players watched as Tsubaki performed a long series of mid air jumps that end with her standing on the dragon nose. As predicted the dragon tried to retaliate and did it quite well actually. Both of it's claws came up to it's face and started to attack Tsubaki with rapid succession, but this didn't faze Tsubaki all as this was what Tsubaki had wanted. If her sword couldn't pierce the dragon she would put her money on the dragon's claws before anything else and well the claws made multiple gashes in the dragon's face which then Tsubaki made deeper and after way to much of what Tsubaki felt to be some sort of trapeze trickery, Tsubaki killed the dragon.

"You know what I hate, landing on the ground, it hurts and for some reason the fall damage in this game is really just negligibly, could the pain be too." Tsubaki winned to Ran once they reunited with each other. Opening her menu, Tsubaki sent Ran the item she got from the last attack bonus as she couldn't read what it was, none of the words were familiar to her. Though with that said most words weren't familiar to her, the ones that were was limited to yes, no and report. "What is it?" Tsubaki asked Ran as she sent the item. Instead of an answer Ran looked up as though she had just won the lottery.

XXXX

What is it?  
Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter will be out in a few

Have a good day!

-Kirk


	175. Increased

December 11, 2023

-Ran and Tsubaki-

"So what your saying is that I can now combine the worthless items I have acquired across basically forty floors into something that we have no idea will be." Tsubaki stated with momentous amounts of sarcasm

They were in both sitting on their resective beds inside their inn room. Tsubaki was laying completely down on her bed with her eyes closed as her mind went through everything that she had just been told. On the other hand Ran was sitting on her bed, with her legs over the edge facing Tsubaki. She also had her menu opened and had just finished reading off everything that she had had been open which was actually quite a lot. It was like reading a book report that had absolutely no voice to it, even coming from Ran's mouth it sounded like she was a computer.

"Well, basically yes." Ran said slowly after an obviously needed sigh. Ran could've predicted what Tsubaki would do but it still served to bring a smile to Ran's face.

"Well isn't that just great." Tsubaki said as she clapped with just as much sarcasm in her voice as in her claps, a phenomenon that Ran didn't even know how she pulled it off. "So are we going to combined it or is all of the last attack bonus I managed to pull off all for nothing." Tsubaki said as pushed herself up with a look of anticipation in her eyes.

"Only an insane person wouldn't do it, but with that said they are your kills so will you do the honors." Ran stated as she gifted the items back to Tsubaki through the system.

Tsubaki smirked as if to say that there was no other way she would have it and opened her menu after accepting the items from Ran. Then she materialized each of the four items for the first and looked at them before. They looked like nothing Tsubaki had ever seen before, though to be fair her knowledge of the world was probably the smallest among everyone in Aincrad. If Tsubaki had to describe them, her first word to use would be paper thin. However it didn't feel like paper to Tsubaki, it felt as it was like her fingernails yet a lot more fragile. It was unlike anything Tsubaki had ever felt before.

Then they were swept straight out of the air in front of both Tsubaki and Ran, resting somewhere in the middle of the two of them. Tsubaki felt her hands subconsciously try to grab onto them but missed, unnoticed by Ran who was look at the four items hovering in the air. They both watched quite enthralled by the four items repositioning themselves in the air before the stopping dead in the before coming together in the center of themselves to form a shape. The shape in question was an oval according to Ran or at least a three-d one of sorts, but Tsubaki had never seen another shape like this one.

But then it started to glow like nothing Tsubaki had ever seen before. If she had to relate it to anything, Tsubaki would say it was like the transformations the bosses went through once they reach a certain health condition. The glowing was only something she had seen in the boss room though she had heard that s-class food also grows but Tsubaki hadn't the chance to come across something as good as that. Though that wasn't for lack of trying, both Tsubaki and Ran had went out of their way to procure an s-class food to eat but with no luck. They both agreed that one thing they would do before the game let out was eat an s-class food.

Tsubaki was brought out of her mind as she started to see the pieces of hard shell like curved paper started to meld into each other, as if they were combining. Along the edge of piece, it continued to glow a sky blue but gradually got dark as time went on. Then the three-d oval shape started to glow everywhere, not just at the seams but this time it was a cool purple instead of a sky blue. If Tsubaki had to guess what this meant, she would say that the object had just finished phase one and entered phase two without any stopping. But this didn't matter to Tsubaki as the only thing that mattered was basking in it's sight.

"What do you think it is?" Ran asked after the object had hovered unmoving for about a minute while keeping it's brilliant show of lights on.

"How am I supposed to now, I never seen anything like this." Tsubaki said as she moved her head around getting different views of the shape.

"It looks like an egg and a big one at that." Ran stated as she too examined the egg from different angles.

"An egg."

This was here first time seeing an egg and well if all eggs looked like this then she would have to more different eggs and see what they looked like. However she was content was just sitting on her bed looking at the egg. If Ran hadn't been sitting across from her she would've have probably would've lost time and just sat in there for more hours than was necessary. It was as if it was a gift from the world above, or in this case the game developers that she had gotten a hold of an item such as this one. There was no way that she would ever let it go.

"So this is what a chicken would come out of." Tsubaki stated.

"Well, a chicken egg is generally a lot smaller and white but that basically the right idea. There is more animals that can come out of an egg than chicken." Ran said as she looked towards her older friend.

"What other animals would come out of an egg?" Tsubaki stated, her eyes never breaking contact with the egg floating in between them.

"Turtles, snakes, crocodiles, fish, I suppose a dragon would too." Ran said as she named the animals that first came to mind.

"A dragon. Wait if a dragon came out of an egg then where do you think that little girl's dragon came from?" Tsubaki asked.

"First of all, that little girl is a year older than me and somehow also taller." Ran stated as she rolled her eyes at Tsubaki which actually garnered Tsubaki moving her attention away from the egg, however brief. "Secondly, where did you learn to ask questions like that?" Ran asked.

This made Tsubaki snicker as she broke her ways away from the egg and looked at Ran. "I had been wondering where she had gotten the dragon from the first time I had seen her. I mean the two of them are like you two. If that dragon could speak it would finish her sentences. It fascinated me and I had been wondering it for all now." Tsubaki said as she crossed her legs and her eyes fell back to the egg.

"I suspect this houses some type of familiar, maybe a dragon like Silica's or maybe even something cooler than that." Ran stated excitedly as pushed herself to the edge of the bed.

"So when does the egg break then?" Tsubaki asked as the both continued to stare at the egg as if their eyes could break the shell.

"Well, in the real world eggs general just hatch on their own but it does take a while. I can't imagine a game would make you wait for the whole entire cycle to be complete before you can get your reward, I mean you've waited long enough." Ran stated as she stood up and examined the egg a lot more closely than any other time before.

"I guess… what happens if I touch the egg?" Tsubaki asked as she looked up to Ran expectantly.

"Nothing of note really." Ran stated quickly.

Tsubaki shrugged and then did what any normal person would do, she poked the big purple glowing egg that was hovering in the air. Almost the instant after Tsubaki touched the egg all of the purple disappeared, or rather all came together at the point of which Tsubaki had touched it. Then the egg started to crack and all of the purple glow feld inside the egg until the egg shells dispersed into purple shards and the contents of the egg fell to the ground and both Ran and Tsubaki look at the contents of the egg before look to each with confusion. Lying on the ground was the contents of the egg, a big purple blob.

XXXX

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Slowly getting closer to what it is, can you guess the creature?

Next chapters will be out in a week

Have a wonderful week til then

-Kirk


	176. Insipid

December 11, 2023

-Ran and Tsubaki-

"What is that!" Tsubaki exclaimed as looked incredulous at the blob of stuff at both Ran and Tsubaki's feet.

"Well, I believe that, my friend is a glob of stuff." Ran stated with a hint of glee and confusion in her voice.

This earned her a glare of annoyance from Tsubaki as she knelt down to the ground and started to examine what seemed to be, Tsubaki just didn't know what is was. The closest she would ever get to actually identifying the mess on the ground was from the sarcastic answer that Ran had given her, and that was an answer that Tsubaki just wasn't content with that. If there was one thing that annoyed her to no end it was an answer that just didn't suffice or didn't make sense, or was just plain stupid and that was just what her friend gave her. Most likely it was just to annoy her and that it did well.

"Great, just great. It gets you all hyped up with a light show then it just gives this inconvenience that isn't even an item, much less something useful." Tsubaki said as she flung her hands above her head.

"I don't know, maybe you should give this purple… thing a chance before you just leave on the ground here." Ran stated as she turned to look at Tsubaki.

Biting her lip, Tsubaki stood in contempt plation for a little bit. No doubt she wanted to figure out what it really did as if it was really just a purple blob then she kill the game developer that gave her such as useless item. The real question here was how long she would let herself be angry before she did give into her curiosity and looked at the blob of uselessness. She could tell that her anger that was directed at the blob was most likely ill-advised and suited. It was down in a brash and careless manner and if she remained that way then she would never get further in life. And unfortunately life for her and the seven thousand plus players in the game, was the game.

"Okay, let's see what this thing is shall we." Tsubaki said as she did the one thing that she thought would work, she poked it.

Since it had worked last time she thought that it was most likely work this time and if whatever hadn't done anything in response then they would be fine and if it did all the better. That was her mentality until she actually poke the big glob of mess and it… attached itself to Tsubaki. It was unlike anything that she had ever felt before as she in her how entire life had never had something start to run up her arm as if it wanted to encase her. However, it didn't scare her for some odd reason as it more or less kind, of made her curious as it slided up her arm and made her wonder just exactly was the thing. Unfortunately for her the feeling of smooth sliding on her arm almost immediately diminished as, what felt to be a blade slammed against her arm.

"Sorry." Ran exclaimed as she dropped her sword.

"I-I-I just didn't know what to do and… before I knew it I was trying to hit the blob off of you." Her voice was unsteady yet got consistently slower as she continued to speak. She opened her mouth up to speak, no doubt to apologize profusely but Tsubaki got to the punch first.

"It's fine… It's fine really, just next time use your head not your sword at least your head will hurt less if you slam it against me." She grinned as her left hand rubbed the spot where Ran had slammed her short sword into her.

"Shut up, now let's figure out what this slime does shall we." Ran stated as she stood up then stop for moment "Where exactly is that the slime?" Ran asked.

That was indeed a very good question, great in fact as Tsubaki had lost it somewhere. Between the surprise and the pain off Ran whacking a sword into her arm, she had lost whatever the last attack bonus was. It had been on her arm the last time she seen if so she checked the rest of what she could touch of her body and around where it had been but to no avail, it seemed to have disappeared. Then she stopping to think for a moment and felt the tiniest of movements on her back, just where her hands couldn't reach, whatever it was had hidden itself on her back.

"It's on my back." Tsubaki stated with a air of help to her voice as she pulled off her shirt to show Ran her back.

"Well you're not wrong." Ran stated as she looked at Tsubaki's back.

Waiting and waiting, Tsubaki stood absolutely still as Ran attempted to pull, cut or use whatever method she deemed reasonable to take the blob off of Tsubaki's back. If the rude language that came every couple of attempts was any indication what so ever, Ran had not made any headway, but that was for lack of trying.

"It's like it glued itself to your body with plaster then suctioned itself to you. Not only can I not get it off, it won't move and it literally is invincible to my blade." Ran sighed as she collapsed on to her bed. "Anything less than a nuke wouldn't take it off of you." Ran stated.

"Awesome." Tsubaki said curtly.

So if Ran couldn't figure out how to get it off of her then it was her turn to try and she had a few first one didn't pan out nor did she really expect it to as she doubted thing would actually suffocate itself. Second hurt a lot more than the first one did as she tried to punch her stomach to launch the thing off her back but she just ended up with a mildly intense bruise on her stomach. And now she was on all floors kneeling over cause what, her stomach felt as though some had just grabbed flattened it, then put it back in her body.

"Just go." Tsubaki said defeatedly as she too fell onto her bed but she felt the blob leave her and fall to the floor unceremoniously.

"How did you do that?" Ran asked as she bolted herself up right.

"We never tried to ask it." Tsubaki said as she facepalmed. "You gotta be kidding me, what is this some trick that the game is pulling on us, I mean seriously they already trapped me in the game and now that give me a piece of blob that is indestructible, unmovable, and unidentifiable. Do a barrel roll." Tsubaki stated as she collapsed on to her bed.

To both Ran and Tsubaki amazement, the purple blob did just that however the really could call it a blob anymore. The blob seemed to morph itself into a barrel then did one roll before unmorphing itself back into a blob. This left both of them with their mouths open, aghast at what they had just seen. It was an experience that Tsubaki had never seen but even more rare was an experience that Ran had never seen. To see an object morph into another object, one that was bigger than it and back again had left Tsubaki physically speechless.

"Tell it to do something." Ran said as she sat on the very tip of her bed.

"Turn into a sword." Tsubaki stated with a tone of excitement hidden in her voice.

And just like that the purple blob turned into a purple sword, it seemed as though it did not have the capability of changing it's color. Tsubaki picked it up and did a few a couple of test slashes. It felt exactly like a regular sword even it's weight was right.

"Turn into a shield." Tsubaki stated with somehow more excitement than before.

"That's amazing." Ran stated breathlessly.

The sword that had been in her hand had turned into a shield, purple just like everything else it had been. Whatever it was, it could change into whatever Tsubaki wanted and Tsubaki could only wait and see the extent of what it could do and what she could be able to do with it. However something popped up in front of her that completely stopped her train of thought for a moment. It was an in game message, much like the ones she would get from the last attack bonus but this one told her of a skill that she had gotten, Shapeshifter's Master.

XXXX

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Another beast Tamer, well kind of

Next chapter will be up in a few

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	177. Inert

December 18, 2023

-Godfree and Zack-

"Pleasure seeing you here Godfree, it has been a while since we talked." Zack laughed as he stepped out from behind the trees

Another contract for him to fullfil, and this one started off a lot easier than some of the other ones he had to partake in. The information that Lux had given him had been particularly interesting as Lux had made him one of their contacts inside The Knights of the Blood Oath. Of course he didn't know this but he had been tricked into friending Lux and that today would prove to be his downfall. Zack knew that if was up to Lux he wouldn't die as she had fun with him but nothing can get in the way of a contract, not even the player's usefulness.

"So it is true then, you became a member of Laughing Coffin, if I heard correctly, you're a highly decorated one at that." Godfree stated as he pulled out his weapon and Zack did the same.

"Naturally, if I am going to kill people I might as well make myself infamous for doing so. How did the front lines like Lynd's shield, it was a pretty nice shield but I have seen better." Zack asked as he laughed a laugh that gave him chills.

"It serves as a reminder for what we are fighting for, to make it so everyone gets out of this game, even if we have to take some killers with like you with us. You gave a relic that will to inspire us for months to come." Godfree stated professional without an aura of fear in his voice.

"So what of yours should I send to them, I would like to send your head but unfortunately the game doesn't allow me to do that." Zack said with a fake sadness etched all acrossed his voice.

"Why would I help you decide that, if I am going to die I am not going to help you find a way to torture my comrades." Godfree stated triumphantly.

"We don't need to find a way to torture your comrades, I think the fact that you guys are slowly getting picked off one by one is enough torture for them, maybe you could decide who gets it next." Zack stated with fake glee.

"Torture, ha, that's all the more reason to fight, to keep on living, so they can avenge the fallen comrades by killing and capturing all of you. There reason we fight is to see the light of a better day, what about you guys, to see world full of carnage." Godfree stated as he readied his axe.

"No, carnage is not what we're after, that's just an added bonus. we are going to see the world fall into a pit of despair as everyone realises that they will never get out of the game." Zack grinned.

"That's sadistic!" Godfree exclaimed.

"And. Godfree, Lieutenant of The Knights of the Blood Oath. I have meet you here today to face off against you in a duel of talents and power. Now match my blade with yours and put your skill to the test. I am the Left Hand of Laughing Coffin, Zack. Now kill me before I kill you." Zack stated as he point his spear at Godfree.

Most player don't start a duel by going all out, the analyse their opponents movements to try and gain a knowledge advantage. In a duel all that matters in who was control and knowledge helps you know exactly who does. Just because one player is the one attacking doesn't mean that they're in control, all that means is they have a controlling position. The smart player can be winning at all times even when they are on defense, that is a mark of a truly talented dueler, like himself. However, with all of that said and know, Zack rushes at him and doesn't give him a second to think nor analyse.

Rushing forward, Zack produced a linear aim directly at Godfree's chest. Of course no Front line member would die to an attack that is so straight forward, and Godfree proved to be respectful in that regard. He jumped backwards to avoid the spear but not too far back as he was still able to attack Zack. Using a massive horizontal, Godfree pushed Zack's assault backwards then advanced on him. Each time Zack blocked or deflected Godfree's axe, he could feel the strength emanating from the blade, he was a lot stronger than Lynd was.

"You're a lot stronger than Lynd. I took him out with only my fists, and he was using his sword the whole time. He was a pathetic excuse for a player. I seriously wonder why Lynd got so popular in the front lines. I mean if he was a guild leader then someone like me would be a god." Zack snarled.

"It's not nice to speak ill of the dead, you should know that." Godfree said through gritted teeth.

"You think I care about being nice, that's rich. If I cared then I probably wouldn't be here killing people. So do you think a killer like me is able to feel compassion, I would kill everyone if I could, and I'll start with you." Zack ran at Godfree after he finished talking.

Zack reached Godfree and launched a flurry of strikes with both the sharp end and the dull one. This made him attacked faster than he did last time, it would be enough to overwhelm the majority of players and Godfree was no different. Put on defense immediately, Godfree struggled to pushed Zack off but with no real luck. Zack's superior speed took Godfree by storm and easily started chip away at him little by little. With a blunt hits to both his arm and legs, plus Zack managed to get a cut on Godfree's hand. Laughing, Zack disengaged and jumped backwards.

"You disappoint me. Come on, put some life into it, I mean your life is on the line. Would you rather crawl and die like a coward or stand and fight. If there is one thing I hate, it is a player who runs away. So show me I'm wrong and you are player worth sinking my blade into." Zack smirked as he readied his blade once. "Come at me, show me the power of Godfree, fourth in command of The Knights of the Blood Oath. Live up to your title." Zack stated as he pointed his spear at Godfree.

"Have it your way then." Godfree stated as he readied his axe.

Without a second thought, Godfree ran at Zack with speed that was unknown to him. This made Zack grin and ready his spear. Once he got within attacking range he produced a speed augmented downwards vertically. It had some much weight to it that if Zack tried to block he would most likely fail, so he dodged, it was easy enough. Then he dodged the next two horizontals and sidestepped the vertically. Zack didn't even use his spear to attack, he was using it to propel him in directions. It was something that he liked to call spear augmented movement and it made it so that Zack's feet barely touched the ground, he was using his spear to move around.

"Come on, what was that, you couldn't even get a hit off on me, and I was using my spear to move. If this is what the front line has to offer then I have to go find another place to find someone to challenge me. But that's after I kill you of course. However I would like to tell you why you are dying here today. There's no contract on your head, we're killing you because it will insight fear and we know where you're at. Remember that girl who friended in a bar, one of ours, and the reason I am going to kill you here today. Now, let's make this even shall we." Zack stated as he stabbed his spear into the ground.

Godfree didn't take the time to analysis the situation all he knew was with the spear Zack was unkillable, but without it, he could attempt to do something. Charging at Zack, Godfree put both hands on his axe and started to swing it at Zack as hard as possible, all he needed as one hit and then he wouldn't die. However, Zack didn't give it to him instead of dodging or taking the hit, he grabbed the axe with his bare hands and ripped it out of Godfree's hands with no one way for him to win now, he was a dead man, the question now was how much torture would he go through before he died.

"This is a nice axe." Zack stated as he admired the axe in his hands. "Who made it?"

"... Lizbeth, just before the fiftieth boss battle." Godfree stated.

"I have always admired her work. I have never personally gotten anything from her, I think the whole red player thing prevents her from making me a weapon. It's a shame, I would really like to see some of her work. We have a contract in for her, I don't know if the superiors will accept it but if I'm the one to kill her I'll tell her you said hello." Zack stated as he swung the axe and took Godfree's head straight off his body in one fell swoop.

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Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Another Red shirt down

Next chapters will be in a week

Have a wonderful week

-Kirk


	178. Immolate

December 25, 2023

-Kirito-

"This is something." Kirito said out loud.

He didn't really mean to say it out loud by there wasn't anyone around to hear him anyways. It was nearly two in the morning and the sleet of snow coming down along with the howl of the wind made it nearly impossible to even tell if there had been a person around him. The snow was falling extremely hard, his sight was nearly nothing and he had wondered why exactly he had decided to face a boss by himself in weather like this but he had one, if barely. But it was all worth it if the ball in his hand was indication.

It was the Divine Stone of the Returning Soul and it could change the course of a person's life and Kirito wondered just exactly who he would give it too. There was no way he would keep it for himself as the same last he had saved it for himself he had always, either forgot to use it a situations that it would be needed or wouldn't have it on him. And that seemed like a waste of a item that had so much power and Kirito didn't want. But he did want to make sure it got passed on to someone he trusted, however he didn't want to be someone who would use it on him. If he died, he would die a hero's death not running away from a death via this item, someone less able the him deserved the right to do that.

For those reasons there were a couple of players that he was close to yet would most likely never give them this stone. First of course was Asuna, as he had no doubt that Asuna would save the stone for him even if she said or thought otherwise. Besides he already had a christmas gift for her so this wouldn't serve a dual purpose. Another was Argo and Kirito was unsure of what Argo would do with it. He knew that there was a strong possibility that she would turn it into the biggest cash grab this game had ever seen yet Kirito thought that there may be a person at which she would use it for but whom, Kirito had no idea. It was clear that Argo was still an ever evolving mystery.

But all of those thoughts were cut off by the faintest of sounds. It may have been louder if it were not for the snow fall and winds however Kirito could still make out a faint whistling sound that was moving, quite fast. The only thing it could be, but Kirito didn't have time to finish that thought as he immediately ducked down, he was right it was a weapon cutting through the air, it was unprofessionally thrown. Only throws like those would make noise loud enough to break the winter's howl. Kirito looked back to see a spear lying on the ground then he looked to where it had presumably came a and saw a person.

Dressed for the occasion, much like himself he had a hood over his head and eye wear to cover his eyes with a piece of cloth to cover his mouth and noise. Long sleeves covered his arms fully and his boots and cloak made it so no other snow really hit him. Like Kirito he was also in all black, as if he was trying to imitate him but the spear on his back made it so that illusion was lost. From his actual appearance he could see very little. He was on the taller side but not much so and was lean, he had the body of a twenty year old male. In addition to that he had blond hair barely not conceal by his hood and blues eyes the pierced his goggles. It reminded Kirito of only one person.

"Kazuma?" Kirito said questioningly.

"NOOO, why would think that, you're a dolt, orange marker." The player stated as he pointed up to his player marker. "Jeez it has been forever since someone confused me with my brother. I should give you props no has done that in a while. What do you want? I already gave you that spear, but this one's better." The player said mockingly as he pretended to hand Kirito his spear. "No, oh come on, this a Laughing Coffin original. Well if you won't take it I guess getting impaled by will suffice in the same way. Name's Zack and I the left hand of Laughing Coffin." Zack stated as he readied his spear.

"Left Hand, is that like third in command?" Kirito asked as he pulled his sword off hit back. The one sheathed on his side remained sheathed.

"What, no it's a figure of speech okay, and I'm the only left handed person in Laughing Coffin so it kind of goes to me by default." Zack stated truthfully.

"Well that must be a kicked in the butt." Kirito snorted, it was barely audible of the weather.

"It is if you keep on saying it." Zack laughed as he readied his weapon as did Kirito.

They both stood there without even moving a fraction of a centimeter, if the wind wasn't moving their hair and clothes neither of them would be moving at all. However, as of right now they were just looking at each other waiting for one to attack. They were both incredible on offense and both wanted it but neither wanted to become over eager and lose it, so both of them were were at a stand still.

Then Kirito heard something, once again out of the corner of his ear, a footstep. It was muffled by the insane layer of snow that had already caked the ground but this almost made it easier to hear the footsteps as they were very different from the howl of the wind and the fall of snow. There were multiple footsteps, there was people surrounding him. Zack wasn't waiting for him to attack he was waiting for him to be surrounded when he attacked. This wasn't going to be a battle of honour, no this would be battle of survival, and Kirito intended to survive.

"I hate you by the way." Kirito stated as he reached down to the ground a packed some snow into a snowball.

"Pray tell, why do you hate me?" Zack asked.

"I'll tell you if you survive this day and we cross weapons again, but for now I won't give the satisfaction." Kirito stated as he fell back into his stance.

The moment he fell back into his stance he dashed out to the side with a snowball in his left hand and his in his right. Kirito had no clue if he was running towards a player or not but this direction seemed a lot better than running straight at Zack. Even if he hadn't been in the loop for the majority of everything he had heard tales of Zack's power. The fact that he took on ten players at the same time and kill four of them without getting a single scratch was impressive, more impressive than anything he had done.

However, much to his dismay, he did run into a player, but not one that he knew nor did he pay much attention to. The player had a two handed sword but unfortunately was to slow for Kirito as he threw his snowball at the player, who was unsuccesful at blocking it and it exploded on their face. Now that the player was blinding Kirito knocked his blade up then down, jerking it so that it would fall out of his hands. Then Kirito stabbed the player straight through the midsection without a second thought and the player dissolved into blue shards almost instantly.

Kirito stood there frozen in fear for a couple of seconds before he composed himself and stated to slowly move. His blade had went through the player stomach without any resistance, as if it was meant to do that, as if he had been design to do that. The player who he had just killed, that player, the one whose name he didn't know had died, no matter which way he said, he had taken a player's life for standing in front of him. He was half tempted to use the stone then thought against but knew exactly who the stone was going to.

XXXX

The end of episode three, took 178 chapters, Holy crap

Well, Kirito knows how to use snowballs

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter will be out in a few

-Kirk


	179. Inadequate

December 25, 2023

-Kirito, Sinon, Silica-

"No." Sinon said as she shut the door in Kirito's

Of course, when was anything easy, it didn't help that instead of sleeping last night he had taken on an event boss, that took out most of his health, then was ambushed by Laughing Coffin, an experience he would rather not think about. However, all of those things were going to be a lot easier than getting his way into Sinon's room. She didn't even ask him what she had wanted, all she had done was open the door, saw it was Kirito, said no then closed the door in his face. Rather blunt and straightforward for Kirito's tastes and that's saying something.

"Sinon." Kirito said after knocking with the back of his fist on the door three times.

This earned him nothing, unfortunately. And unfortunately for him this was the only way in if he didn't want to attempt to scale this building. Saffi had been gracious enough to allow him to enter and give him where Sinon's room was but he didn't want to push his luck by asking for a key. If he was going to get into this room then he would do it without any tricks, and most likely a ton of persistence.

"Sinon." Kirito reiterated after knocking even harder on the door. It wasn't too hard but it did make a audible difference.

Again she didn't open the door but he could here something coming from inside the room. Someone was obviously speaking, and not all that quite at all. Kirito could hear through the door without trying but just barely, it was enough to make Kirito want to place his eye of the door and listen in but that seemed like an extreme breach of privacy and Kirito doubted that it would help him get into the room.

"Sinon." Kirito said as he knocked on the door with the front of his hand this time.

Once again there was no answer but there was definitely something going on inside as if there was two people talking, most likely arguing. One of them, Kirito guessed it was Sinon, was completely level headed both in her tone and voice. Nothing sounded rushed nor loud. The other, made up for what Sinon was missing. In fact if she hadn't been talking Kirito wouldn't have know that there was two people in the room.

"Sinon." Kirito knocked on the door once more.

"Shut up, you'll wake Pina." A girl yelled, cutting Kirito off.

He knew that name, but where did he know that name from was the real question. In his mind he a bunch of knowledge about just stuff really and somehow he needed to find that one piece of information. It was a name so it was obviously a player but it was noon on christmas, no player was awake, hell, Kirito even knew of a few parties that were going on and had gotten invited to one himself. Of course Klein could wait till later but no player was asleep so it must not be a player then. Then it hit him like a train, it was a pet and not just any pet it was the dragon of the girl that hanged around with Sinon, Silica was in there.

"Silica." He knocked a lot softer than any time other than the first time.

"How do you know my name?" Silica asked as she poked her head out from behind the door.

"You were at the fiftieth boss battle right. I remember you because you had this blue dragon that kept flying around and healing people, I had never seen anything like it before." Kirito stated with absolute sincerity.

"Thank you, that was so nice, unlike Sinon back here." Kirito heard a scowl from the back, presumably from Sinon. "So we're friends right?" Silica asked as she opened the door more so Kirito could see what was inside.

"Sure." Kirito stated after thinking about it for a second.

"And friends give each other presents right?" Silica said as she fled her hands as if she was begging and turned her eyes into those akin to a dog's.

"Ah, yes, I was going to give this to you at Klein's party but I guess I could give it to you now." Kirito stated as he opened his menu.

Somehow Silica's eyes went even wider when Kirito said yes. She most likely thought that Kirito hadn't gotten anything for her and would catch him off guard, making for many laughs for her and mainly her. However she probably secretly wanted this to happen because she probably wanted to see what she had gotten from Kirito.

"Here you go, I didn't know your size so I got you one that self adjusts." Kirito stated as he handed it to her.

"Thanks." Silica said, almost yelled as she took the gauntlet in her hands and put it on her arm.

"It's for you left hand." Kirito stated as he pointed at where the thumb should be.

"Oh, that would make sense, thanks!" Silica stated with enthusiasm as she attached the gauntlet to her left arm a raised it up so she could see how it looked on her arm. "Since you're me friend, I kindly invite you into our humble-" Silica was saying into she got cut off.

"Don't you dare." Sinon said as she came around the corner a glowered at Silica and Kirito.

"Abode." Silica finished, not even batting an eye at Sinon's comment.

This made Kirito mentally shit himself as he noted never to piss off Sinon or face the wrath of her which from what he could tell right now was actually quite fierce. However as of right now since he kind of wanted to at least get something done he was going to have to face done the wrath of what he hoped was his friend. Kirito braced himself for what was yet to come and smiled at Silica as he walked through the door and into Sinon and presumably Silica's room.

"Thank you, Silica." Kirito said as he bowed his head ever so slightly.

"You are welcome, now if you could take off your shoes and coat, it's not winter in here." Silica laughed as she walked back into the room, bouncing with every step.

Kirito took off both his cloak and boots even if he wasn't planning on staying awhile as he really thought that Sinon would need time to address his gift after she got it. Looking around the room could tell that they spent most of their from just the decorations that littered the place. They had a Christmas tree that was at least double Silica's height with a star on top of it with ornaments and the such covering almost everything so that Kirito more or less thought it was a mound of christmas stuff before anything else.

"I would give you a present but I haven't gotten one for you, you're going to be at Klein's Christmas party right?" Silica asked as she turned around to face the beater.

"Wouldn't miss it for the world." Kirito stated as he turned to face both Silica and Sinon how was still more or less till glowering at Silica.

"Great, I'll give you it then." Silica stated a lot more bright than Sinon's looks. "Sinon, look at this, look how cool it looks, it feels so comfortable, who did you get it from?" Silica asked as collapsed onto where Pina was sleeping, how in response shot bubbles at Silica.

"It got it from Ashley, she gives me a discount on almost everything as long as spread her name, and yet I still haven't fixed my cloak." Kirito sighed as he walked over to Silica and Sinon. "She likes frontline members so you could probably get some gear out of her too." Kirito stated as he sat on a chair at the table that both Sinon and Silica were sitting at.

"Thanks I'll be sure to replace this outfit once it runs out of style. Speaking out running out of style, Sinon your face has turned exponentially more grumpy than it usually is." Silica stated with a little bit too much glee in her voice.

"It's because of you." Sinon glowered at Silica.

"Well that's usual, but you know what will cheer you up, the gift Kirito is about to give you." Silica stated as she turned to Kirito. Kirito sat motionless for a moment as Silica looked at him expectantly. "Oh come on Kirito, I know you brought her one, don't let me down." Silica pleaded once more.

"You're right." Kirito stated as he pulled out a small glasses container and handed it to Sinon

That sat there in silence, even Silica who had her mouth open to saw thank you but stop as soon as Kirito pulled out his gift for Sinon. This had no doubt not been what they had been expecting. Kirito didn't exactly know what they had been expecting but nevertheless Kirito charged on and placed the gift in front of Sinon and slowly retracted his hand his hand back to him as he placed it in his lap. Even before he had given it to her he knew that this gift was a long shot and not the safe option but he wanted to do it it anyways, to show her that he truly wanted to rebuild what they had lost.

"It's made of bulletproof glass and the rim color is the the same, I couldn't replicate it completely but it is as close as it could possibly be." Kirito stated as he put his other hand in his lap.

"Leave." Sinon said curtly. It was a question or her asking him to leave, no it was her telling him to leave now.

"Thank for your time. Silica see you at the party." Kirito said as he left, grabbing both his boots and his cloak.

XXXX

Silica is amazing

Hope you all enjoy this chapter

Next chapters will be up in a week

Have a wonderful week

-Kirk


	180. Match

December 25, 2023

-Kirito and Asuna-

"There you are Kirito, you are late." Asuna pouted as she ran over to Kirito with quite possibly the girliest run he had ever seen her do.

This was most likely because for this meeting she had chosen to dress up quite a lot more extravagant that what Kirito would've done. Her dress was just about as short as her usually outfits skirt was but instead of the patented white and red she was wearing a warm pink. To cover her legs she was wearing long white leggings then end with a pair of pink shoes. On the other side her pink garment covered up most of her chest with an area just under the neck left revealed while her arms were completely bare. To cover most of this up she had on a white coat that clashed nicely with her pink and on her ears were a pair of earrings.

"You look amazing." Kirito said.

"Thanks, you look rather dashing, you clean up well." Asuna stated in response.

Her voice was rather restraint like she was trying to hold in some emotion of some kind, what emotion, Kirito couldn't tell you. However he was rather thankful for the compliment from Asuna because he didn't know how well he had dressed himself. Like usual he was still in a completely black outfit but now he had on more of a sweater vest type thing instead of a plain shirt with a cloak to go over top of it. He had actually bought this outfit for this specific event and couldn't be more happy with himself. The money he had spent was entirely worth it.

"So, where are we going first?" Kirito asked Asuna.

He hadn't planned out this meetup like all of the others ones he had planned before it, and there had been quite a few that he had done. Instead Asuna had asked him if she could take the reins for Christmas so that she could show him what she had to offer instead. This made Kirito admit that he was rather anxious for this as he had no idea what to expect. But he knew he would be fine, if he believed in himself so in order to make him believe in himself he got himself a snazzy new outfit and didn't sleep for the whole night, the usual.

"First I thought we would exchange Christmas presents, and I decided that your's would come first, because I like present and I can't hold in my excitement any longer." Asuna stated as she clapped her hands together.

"Well I got you two presents, uh, here's the first one." Kirito said as he handed her a tiny box. "I didn't know what kind you like so I just thought I would get something that I thought would look good a you." Kirito stated as he looked towards the ground, he really wanted Asuna to like this gift.

"It's amazing Kirito." Asuna stated as she hugged him. She had both blue earrings in her hands as she did so. "What's the other gift." Asuna said with a tone that mind her seem like she was on the edge of her seat in anticipation.

"I got you this." Kirito stated as he materialized a sword and handed it to Asuna. "I know it's not all that personal but I didn't know what else to get you." Kirito stated truthfully.

"You did great Kirito, trust me I'll remember these gifts." Asuna as she place the sword in her inventory and switch Kirito's earrings so that she would be wearing those. "Now, we'll have to go somewhere to get your gift, so come on, I can't wait to see your face." Asuna stated as she was practically bouncing on her feet. "But first I do have another gift for you, I was going to get you a sword but after I saw that you have two perfectly good ones in your inventory I decide on this." Asuna stated as she materialized a sword sheath out of her inventory. "It morphs to fit any sword, I hope you like it." Asuna as she had it to Kirito.

"Wow, I have never seen anything like it, Thank you Asuna." Kirito said after he had looked it over.

"Thank you, but come on now the best is yet to come." Asuna stated as she grabbed Kirito's hand and pulled him towards on of the shops on floor fifty.

In the month that floor fifty had been open, it had been made into quite possible the most populated floor save for floor one. The merchants and shop owners had decided to make all of the shops come out of floor fifty as the town had more than enough room to house at least one hundred shops maybe more. Both Agil and Lizbeth had taken up a shop on floor fifty and he had personal visited Ashley's. He also knew that argo had gotten a house on floor fifty and it was quite a large one to, Kirito was impress when he saw it. But if Kirito had to guess where Asuna was bringing him he would have to say Ashley's and he was right.

"What are you getting me?" Kirito asked as he looked up at the sign to Ashley's store.

"Not yet mister, you'll know soon enough, now come on, it's cold out." Asuna stated as she walked into Ashley's shop with Kirito holding the door for her.

"Maybe you wouldn't be cold if you were actually wearing pants." Kirito stated as he closed the door.

"Shut up, Ashley, your favorite customer has arrived." Asuna stated as she stepped off to the side and revealed Kirito.

"Oh I have been waiting for this, time to get you out of that old cloak and into a new one don't you saw, Asuna commissioned me to make your cloak, so take off that tux, I need to get your measurements." Ashley stated with quite a lot of enthusiasm.

"So this is your Christmas gift to me, having another girl measure me." Kirito stated with a chuckled as he took of his sweater vest and shoes and stood right where Ashley's stand her sign was.

"Shut up, and anyways you need a new one, it's not like you're going to wear a cloak that has a cut down it's arm and a hood that doesn't even stay on now are ya." Asuna rolled her eyes.

"Well is planning on wearing it till the arm fell off but I can't now can can't." Kirito retorted.

"You just shouldn't as that would be a crime to fashion, aren't I right Ashley." Asuna said without an hesitation.

"Yes, I doubt you even washed the thing by the looks of how dirty it's was, now I will not have that with any of my products, you will have to wash this at least once every month or I'll set Asuna on you." Ashley stated as she got his width measurement.

"Yes ma'am." Kirito said quickly as if he had planned it.

"Alright, now what color do you want it to be?" Ashley asked.

"You decide Asuna, it is your gift after all." The Black Swordsman stated.

"Well we should keep it black to maintain the image of you having now fashion sense." This earned a hey from Kirito and giggle escaped Asuna lips. "But his last outfit had only black so could we give this one some white highlights, oh and a collar, you would look good in a collar." Asuna said as she rubbed her hands together deviously.

"Do you want any buttons?" Ashley asked.

"No I want to see that Kirito actually changes his shirt." Asuna giggled

"Anything else?" Ashley asked as she wrote down Asuna's last request.

"I have nothing, Kirito do you have anything to add onto your coat?" Asuna turned to Kirito who felt as if two girls were designing his wardrobe for him.

"Could have a sash to put by sheath on?" Kirito asked.

"Always pragmatic aren't you Kirito, that can be done, your cloak will be ready by the end of the day, so come and pick it up, now begone before I kick you out myself." Ashley stated as she pushed Kirito and Asuna out.

"Well that was fun, where to next?" Kirito stated as he put back on his sweater vest.

"I am hungry so let's go eat, there's this fantastic soup place on the floor come on." Asuna stated with a grin equivalent to a kid in a candy store.

XXXX

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter will be up in a few

Merry Christmas to those in the game

Have a wonderful day

-Kirk


	181. Merger

December 25, 2023

-Kirito and Asuna-

"I ordered you water, I hope that is fine." Kirito stated as Asuna sat down in her seat.

They were in one of the cafe's on floor fity, this one in particular was known for its soups, according to Asuna at least. Kirito had never been a connoisseur of foods so he would just have to take Asuna's word on the matter. So far at least Asuna had not been wrong in any regard at least with food. Most of what Asuna had ever ordered that Kirito had the pleasure of trying Kirito loved with the sole exception of a pita sandwich thing that she had gotten. That was something that he absolutely could not agree with Asuna on, it taste downright horrible and there was no way in hell he would try it again.

"Thank you, you can go to the bathroom now if you like." Asuna stated as she moved her straw around to take a drink.

"I'm fine." Kirito stated curtly but was meant with an equally or even more so curt look from Asuna.

"Go wash your hands." Asuna stated without conceding a centimeter.

"Yes mom." Kirito stated as he bolted up and literally almost ran to the bathroom.

Once inside the bathroom he had done what Asuna had asked him to, he washed his hands along with his face, multiple times. He knew that having a meal with Asuna could be so stress, if they were in the real world he would be reaking from his armpits and back of sweat. Why was he so stressed? It's not like he was in an important meeting that him made him afraid no, Asuna was in no way like that, she was just Asuna. Even when he was about to face Heathcliff or the fiftieth boss battle he didn't have this feeling, what was this feeling. With one finally wash of his hands and face, Kirito exited from the bathroom almost in the same fashion as Asuna had.

"I ordered your food by the way." Asuna stated with a hint of a smile forming on her face. Kirito didn't like that at all.

"What did you order me?" Kirito asked as he was preparing for something like cabbage soup.

"I ordered you a bouillabaisse." Asuna stated, stumbling a bit on the last word.

"What is that?" Kirito asked.

Asuna giggled.

"It is a stew with a whole bunch of fish along with some vegetables in a broth, it is french and it has a cayenne pepper so a thought you may like it." Asuna stated with a smile on her face.

"Next time you want to get me something with peppers in it, can you get me chili or something." Kirito said after rolling his eyes just a little bit.

"Where's the fun in that." Asuna laughed as she took another drink of her water.

"What did you get then, if I had to guess you got a soup,and that soup would be… french onion soup." Kirito said with and air of I told you so.

"How did you know?" Asuna said as her back instantly straight as if in response to Kirito know what she had gotten.

"Well it wouldn't take a genius to know how much you like it. In all of the time we have had the get togethers you have had two and three times, I mean serious to talk about fun and you haven't had anything knew in a while." Kirito stated as he gave her an I told you so look.

"Okay I'll try yours, but if I puke you're cleaning me up okay, plus you're going to take me home so I can take a shower, I would really rather not smell like puke." Asuna stated as he gave Kirito the look of defiant resolution.

To this Kirito easily agreed, as he doubted that she would actually puke it up. If she had gotten it for him it must have some redeeming qualities, right? Or maybe not now that he thought about it. The more he thought about what he was about to be eating the more scared he got, what was in it, what kind of fish, what vegetables, was there rice! No there wouldn't be rice it was french soup not a japanese one that had a side of rice. And now he really wanted rice, maybe he could ask from Asuna afterwards.

"That makes me feel ten times better Asuna, thanks for that." Kirito said sarcastically as he tried to relax himself.

"Only the best for my Kirito, oh here it comes, be prepared to feast, or not I don't know how good your meal is." Asuna stated as she picked up her chopsticks, reading herself for a bowl that wasn't even on the table.

Now Asuna's dish looked absolutely amazing and delicious, he briefly wondered why she hadn't gotten it for him to but quickly chalked it up to being that she wanted to tease him. It was a soup as per it's name though Kirito really thought that they should add the word cheese into the title at some point because it kind of looked like a bowl of hot cheese at first glance. However underneath that was where it's name sake came into play. A broth and meat stock made up the soup and while onions were underneath. Kirito doubted that those were the only ingredients but he didn't know any of the others so he turned his attention to his plate.

Or should he say bowl of stuff, ah yes, bowl of stuff was pretty accurate to what was in front of Kirito. What Asuna had ordered him looked more like a stew than anything else though a stew was most likely considered a type of soup, or at least that was Kirito's explanation. The was a soup of course it looked orange and had the appeal of looking somewhat spicy, this served to entice Kirito, while the rest of the soup confused. It was like someone took a whole bunch of random fish and leftover vegetables, cooked them, threw them into the soup then said, ta-dah. It was most likely going to be the weirdest thing he had eaten, at least in Aincrad.

"You know if you stare at it hard enough it will turn into sandwiches." Asuna said after she had taken at least a couple stabs out eating all of the onions in her soup.

"Rude." Kirito said as he picked up his chopsticks and took a bite of one of the shellfishes inside the soup, it was surprisingly good.

Curious, Kirito picked up his spoon then got himself and bite of just pure soup for himself to enjoy. It was not spicy really, though he could see how someone like Asuna would think it to be spicy. However, that did not mean it wasn't good as it had been awhile since Kirito had something this good. Then he took a bite of one of the vegetables and though he was not a fanatic of earth grown food he did not hate it. Vegetables like these made him want eat vegetables as anything that tastes this good is worth it a million times over.

"Asuna, you have to try this, it's quite good." Kirito stated not quite with his mouth empty.

"I know silly, do you really think I would get you something you didn't like, I just wanted to tease you. I've had bouillabaisse many times over, even in the real world. It was a personal favorite of my father's and one of the few meals that he was actually able to cook. Though he usually didn't put shellfish into the equation." Asuna stated as she wrapped some cheese around her chopsticks then slipped it into her mouth.

"You have to try the shellfish then it's… I was going to try to delicious in french but it sounds the same." Kirito laughed as help awkwardly failed his french impression.

"I'll teach you one day, you'll be fluent in french in no time." Asuna said after taking a bite of the shellfish. "This is really good." Asuna exclaimed with the majority of the fish still in her mouth, Kirito laughed a tiny bit. "Sorry." Asuna said as she immediately covered her mouth.

"I did the same thing, I just would have never expected it to come from uptight Miss Asuna." Kirito said as he made an impression.

"If you do that again I'm going to stab you." Asuna stated curtly.

"Hey!" Kirito exclaimed as his hands flew up.

"Tell you what you pay for the meal and I'll call it even." Asuna grinned.

"I was going to pay for the meal anyway." Kirito muttered as he placed the col on the table then followed Asuna out of the cafe.

XXXX

How about KiritoXAsuna

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Merry Christmas in the game at least

Next chapter will be up next week

-Kirk


	182. Most

December 25, 2023

-Kirito-

Kirito placed his cloak onto the hook by the door. It had been there since he had brought his apartment but this was the first time he had used it as he had really cared about this jacket. Made by Ashley and brought by Asuna, it was the most impressive jacket he had ever had and he wanted to keep it preserved. While he doubted that it could survive the entirety of the rest of this game, he still wanted to have it for the longest time. Kirito smiled as he let go of his cloak and it laid gently in his hook by the door, it rustled a little bit then fell silent.

Tapping the wall the lights came on from to separate lamps on each side of his bed. The light from the window that he had usually used had diminished as it was nighttime and the rolling hills and moving waters of floor seventeen, while beautiful, doesn't emit light of any kind. Kirito had spent a long time without even using lights in this apartment as he only used it to sleep but now that he had matured into it, the lights were always welcomed. However the brightness that they were at were hurt his eyes at the current moment so he turned on of the lamps off.

Usually this wasn't the case but after pulling an all nighter his worst enemy was the sun more than anything else. While his lamps may not be the sun with how much light they were displaying there really wasn't a big difference in volume between the two. His eyes hurt way too much to be thinking about this right now, he would need to get some sleep so he could train tomorrow morning. Or maybe he would hold off as he was really tired and didn't even know if he would wake up tomorrow. After reasoning with himself for an incredibly short amount of time he decided to hold off training and visit Agil at his shop.

Standing up he walked over to his windows that were not yet closed and the sights outside was still as beautiful as ever. In sharp contrast the snow he had felt in the early hours of the morning, the snow here was failing gently, and melting before it could even stick to the ground. It was nice, almost calming to Kirito. He saw a couple sitting in the snow trying to gather as much snow as they could to build a snowman but from what Kirito could see it look like it had more dirt than snow. This made Kirito smile too, it looked incredibly fun to do that, maybe he should do it sometime.

Smiling, and a little hesitant, Kirito grabbed the side of the curtains and closed the the windows so no air could escape. Now he couldn't see into the outside world and he could get some much needed rest. If Asuna could see what he had done she would have been yelling at him relentlessly, perhaps that was why he didn't tell her. No, he knew what her response would be when he told what he had done. She would tell him that it was reckless and that should never do it again. And then make him treat her to some food, which she seemed to always try and pay for but never did.

He unhooked his from his side. The place that Ashley had designed to place his sword sheathed he had not yet tried out as he didn't have it for most of the day. Maybe he would try it out tomorrow after all every time he wore his sword on his belt, he always had the fleeting feeling that his pants were going to fall off, and that isn't the best feeling in the world. Kirito placed his sword on his desk the quickly changed into his night stuff. This usually just meant changing his pants either into more comfortable pants or removing them all together. His shirt really didn't matter as he had to many to count of his plain black shirt to care if he slept in it or not. He sat down by his desk and started to dissolve his day clothing and sword before he got stop in the middle of something.

Never in even the wildest dreams that he had would he have expected to see this, no matter how hard it had hurt. It was from Sahi. His mouth had said her name even before he had thought about saying it, as if had been programed into his brain. Levitating just a couple centimeters above his desk, was a gift from Sachi, nothing he had ever expected himself to get. Why was he getting? Had she sent one to everyone else in case she had died while everyone else was still alive? In cased she had actually escaped that day? Kirito needed to know the answer so he opened up the gift.

"Merry Christmas, Kirito." It was Sachi's voice coming out of a message recorder, it was for him.

"By the time you hear this, I'll probably be dead." Sachi stated, surprisingly curtly, especially for Kirito not being able to see her face.

What did that mean? Did that mean she didn't trust in her abilities, in her guild, in him? He need to know what exactly this meant, what exactly this was for.

"How should I put it, the- the truth is I never want to leave the first town." Sachi stated truthfully

Kirito tried to stay completely silent but he could tell that even his smallest of movements were creating sound that echoed off the walls of his apartment. He had never shown her this apartment even though he had bought it while he had known her, he hadn't even shown it to Asuna yet.

"However, if I had thoughts like that, I knew that my end would eventually come." A tear started to form in Kirito's eyes.

"That in itself is nobody's fault, but mine and mine alone." Sachi stated. Kirito wanted to to see her, to tell her that she was wrong, to tell her that what she was saying wasn't true. Only if he could, he would do everything to tell her that she was wrong, but he couldn't.

"Ever since that night, you continued to assure me that I would definitely survive." Sachi said.

Did she send any messages to the other members of the Moonlit Black Cats?

"So if I died, I'm sure that you would try to place all the blame on yourself." Sachi's words hurt Kirito, these ones more than most.

"That's why I decided to leave this behind." Sachi said. Kirito didn't know what to say. She knew him even better than he had known himself.

"And, I do know what level you are, I caught a glimpse of it before." Sachi stated and Kirito couldn't help but feel a little ashamed of himself, he had kept that a secret from her, a person who told him everything.

"Even though I thought long a hard about why you hid your level and joined us, I never did find out. But I was actually glad when I learned just how strong you were. I was really relieved." Sachi stated, Kirito could see the smile on her face even if the smile had existed so long ago.

"So, even if I die, work hard to survive, okay?" You got it. "Live to see the end of this world." I will. "Find the meaning of it's creation, the meaning behind a weak girl like me, and the meaning behind me meeting you, that is my final and last wish, Kirito. Please fulfill it." I promise I will. Tears were running down his face and even though he could not see or know that she had shedded tears, for some reason he knew that she had.

"There's still some time left, since it's Christmas, how about a song?" Sachi said with fake cheerfulness.

Sachi started to hum a christmas song but Kirito couldn't really tell which one it was as his noise seemed to eclipse some of the wonderful music that Sachi had been humming. What did this mean? No, he knew what it meant and what she had done. And even if he would have to go to the ends of this world to figure it out he would, no matter what, but he already had one answer. As tears fell onto the the desk, Kirito told Sachi that she wasn't a weak girl as a weak girl wouldn't be able to do what he had done, a weak person would have ran away like he did.

"Bye, Kirito." Sachi stated mournfully. "Meeting you and being with you, I don't regret it in the least, Thank you, Farewell." And with that Sachi's present broke leaving Kirito behind in a state that definitely nothing like the tiredness that he was supposed to be feeling.

XXXX

Episode three done

That was a long time coming, but who doesn't like Sachi

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Have a great day

-Kirk


	183. Meeting

December 31, 2023

-Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Argo, Lizbeth, Silica, Klein, Ran, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

"Hey Kirito, glad you could make it." Klein stated as he took Kirito's outstretched arm and translated it into a hug. This temporarily left Kirito stunned and speechless but he recovered at once.

"I wouldn't miss this for the world." Kirito stated with a wide grin as their hug broke.

"Speaking to the person who didn't come to my birthday party, you have to come to the next one, I didn't know that food come be that good in Aincrad." Klein stated with enthusiasm as he ruffled Kirito's hair. Klein was at least a head taller than Kirito but that was probably due to the age difference. Before Talking or even doing anything else, he readjusted his hair back to the usual messy mop that sat on top of his head.

"How old are you now?" Kirito asked as he took off his coat and placed it on a chair nearby.

"Twenty five, and still young." Klein stated with obviously to much pride as he raised his glass that obviously contained some sort of alcoholic beverage native to Aincrad, the likes of which Kirito had truthfully never seen.

"Yeah right, leave us youngins to do the partying." Argo stated as she punch Klein in the stomach.

The effect of this was instantaneous and everyone in the room had stopped talked to watch it, even Pina stopped flying and landed on Silica's head. Of course the first thing Klein did was act like it hurt a lot or maybe Argo had a lot more strength than she let on as Klein dropped his glass of beer onto the ground which hit the ground with a loud crash. Klein however, dropped onto the ground and curled up right after the glass had hit the ground. This made Klein jumped up off the ground and a couple of meters into the air before landing on his feet, clutching his buttocks. Everyone, even Pina was laughing at him.

"Not funny." Klein stated as he rubbed his buttocks and stomach obviously aching from the pain.

"Obviously not as young as you thought you were Klein, being beaten up by a teenage girl, how the mighty have fallen." The info trader Laughed as she walked away from the guild leader.

"Pina clean." Kirito didn't get to see the action Silica did to send Pina to clean but he could only assume it was as good as watching Pina clean. The dragon had obviously done it before for the clumsy dragon tamer as she seemed quite proficient at cleaning up the broken glass. Fluffling up it's tails feathers, Pina used it tail as broom and swept all the glass into one spot before using it's magic to zap to pulverise it into nothingness. The Pina drank the remained liquid off the ground before flying up to hit the ceiling then dive bombing for Silica, who caught her.

"That was amazing Silica." Kirito stated once he had walked all the way to where Silica was sitting with Pina on her lap being stroked by Silica's hand, her dragon obviously still hadn't gotten over Klein's drink.

"Thanks I have been getting Pina to do tricks like that for a while now, do you want to see another one?" Silica asked, but it was rhetorical, no matter how much skepticism was shown on Kirito's face. Silica then tried to get Pina to balance a knife on her noise which didn't even get passed on second as it fell on the ground before it had balance on Pina's noise, the dragon was still drunk. "Well, I guess it wouldn't work right now, but you now what will, my present." Silica stated with a gleam in her eyes like nothing Kirito had ever seen before, she was obviously excited to give it to him.

"I didn't know what to get you so I hope you like it." Silica stated as she swayed a little bit, pushing her gift into Kirito's hands.

It was a small box and judging by the weight it contents wasn't that much either and yet Kirito was eversomuch intrigued. Most of the people he knew had gotten him stuff for in the game like gear and the such with the rare clothes but nothing like this. It's underplayed presentation intrigued Kirito very much. Opening inside there was just one small item and yet he would have never expected something like this to be so interestingly touching to him, inside was just one pepper.

"I heard that you liked spicy food and that pepper is the priciest piece of food in the game. It's an A-class food item, none of the S-class food items were spicy." Silica stated as she slowly stated to ramble on.

"It's amazing Silica, but you understand if I wait to eat. I would rather have it cooked it into something." Kirito stated as he placed the item in his inventory.

"Oh come on, I would have loved to see you curl over in pain when you eat it. The person I bought it from said it was even spicier than anything he had ever ate in the real world. I was really hoping to see that today." Silica pouted as Pina started to snore. This cut her pout short as she had to wake up Pina so that the dragon wouldn't start to snore bubbles.

"Thank you once again." Kirito stated as he walked away. Silica said something that wasn't quite audible but this didn't matter as he had something more pressing to contend to. There was an unrecognizable hand on his shoulder.

"You think you could talk to my subordinate and not have to talk to me, you have some nerve Kirito. Though I guess you wouldn't be yourself without all that nerve, now would you." It was Saffi obviously attempting to be as creepy as possible.

"You can't pull that off." Kirito stated as he turned around to face the shorter player. She was almost as tall as Silica and yet he knew that their ages were nothing similar.

"Can't pull what off?" Saffi asked, obviously with some offense in her voice, no matter how much she tried to downplay it.

"Your voice is too lighthearted and fair to make it sound creepy. If anything that voice would be able to seduce before it could creep someone out." Kirito stated with a bit too much bluntness.

"Do you know how to talk to women?" Saffi asked as she smiled a little bit.

Kirito made himself look as he was thinking for moment until he opened his mouth and replied no to her question. That was most definitely the correct answer, he didn't know why Asuna would stay around him with his lack of finesse in his speech. Not that he was complain, mind you.

"Damn it you otaku, you shut in Neet." Saffi stated as she stood up to her full height. This may have offend Kirito if it wasn't true. "I bet I could do something that you can't." Saffi stated was a wide grin crossed her face. Now that was creepy it almost looked as though she was hungry. It was enough to make Kirito squirm a little bit.

"I wouldn't doubt it." Kirito said as he hoped it would deter Saffi from whatever she was planning on doing.

It didn't. Saffi first kicked herself up into a handstand, quite easily Kirito might add. Then she did something that seemed to not have been possible even by the game's standards. Saffi slowly separated her hands until her elbows were locked at a ninety degree angle and then she criss crossed her legs as if she was sitting down, but it midair. This however was not was seemed to defy physics it was what came next, Saffi used her arm strength and pushed herself of the ground and outstretched her legs grabbed the sides of Kirito face for the slightest second to readjust her flight course and then laid on top of Kirito's head, doing a handstand.

"Told you."Saffi stated, not even the slightest bit out of breath.

"Could you do that back in the real world?" Kirito asked trying to look up at Saffi but obviously failing miserably.

"I could, but most people seemed to crumble under the pressure of having a person on top their head." Saffi stated with a laugh but didn't budge.

"Could I talk to you." It was Asuna.

"Sure, uh." Kirito Started to say but Saffi cut him off.

"I can take a cue geez." Saffi jumped off of Kirito's head and laid way to gracefully back on the ground. "Kirito, I want to duel you sometime, show me that you have improved since last time and I would love to knock you down a peg or two." Saffi laughed as she walked away.

"Alright." Kirito stated and turned to face Asuna.

XXXX

More Saffi, Silica, Klein, side characters basically

Next chapters will be out in a week

Hope you all have enjoyed this chapter

Have a wonderful day

-Kirk


	184. Modish

December 31, 2023

-Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Argo, Lizbeth, Silica, Klein, Ran, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

"She's something." KIrito stated as he plopped himself down on the seat right next to Asuna.

"I agree, but I can't imagine someone like that leading a guild." Asuna said as she looked over at the small silver haired girl.

Saffi was not the kind of person that would make everyone come together. There was of course the fact that she looked like a fourteen year old schoolgirl but there was more to that. If that was the case than Asuna would just be a hypocrite. Unlike Asuna she didn't really have any commanding presence, her mannerisms were anything but official and were more a I don't care type of way, and she had an unfortunate habit of accidently bragging about herself. If anything she would be the source of competition and every player for themselves and yet her guild was the most tightly knit group of players Asuna had ever seen.

"Well she doesn't really lead the guild." Kirito said absent mindedly.

"How so?" Asuna asked.

To be fair Asuna really didn't look into the other guilds apart from their DPS players as she really had no control or interest in any other players. Asuna really didn't know how they operated but Asuna knew that Saffi's Storm of Centuries move like they were one unit. For that much Asuna had admiration for them as she didn't know how they did it. No matter how much she tried to emulate it in her ranks it really didn't work as her players didn't have the comradery to manage to pull it off at the extent that Saffi and her guild had managed to do.

"Well Saffi just made the guild because she knew that the front lines needed a guild that need to move as one unit and she knew that a guild such as The Knights of the Blood Oath could never achieve what her's could so created a group of players based on compatibility not skill." Kirito stated.

"And she doesn't command it?" Asuna asked.

"She's barely even a part of it, it's not like she is the easiest person to get along with. Her skill is unrivaled even when she uses weapons that don't makes sense or that shouldn't be weapons. And she makes habit of showing that she can proficiently use them. She's a walking genius that doesn't know when to stop, now would you have an easy time getting along with her?" Kirito asked as he looked Asuna dead in the eyes

"Well, no." Asuna stated truthfully. She would rather not be friends with someone who always made her feel second best.

"And Saffi knew that she hand picked her leader to her own guild." Kirito stated with a smile.

"Who?" Asuna asked.

"Sinon." Kirito said, maybe a little too curtly. "She is skillful yet not at the level of natural talent that Saffi is at, you can tell that she worked to achieve her skill. She is down to earth yet she has the ability to command even if it is not her strong suit. Lastly she is nice and likable, a perfect choice for what Saffi needed." Kirito stated with some admiration, he would never achieve what she had.

"So Saffi used her skill to assemble a group of players that would get along together with Sinon at the helm?" Asuna asked, trying to clarify.

"Yeah, basically." Kirito grinned.

"That takes some willpower to do, I mean she went through an incredibly hard task that was time consuming just to give up everything that she has achieved to someone else. Now I understand why she doesn't like to be at the boss meetings, it's not like she really does much of anything for the guild." Asuna stated with yet the same level admiration.

They continued to talk about the guilds on the front lines and by that basically The Knights of the Blood Oath and Storm of Centuries since every other guild had fallen out of the front lines. The army didn't have the leadership to continue every far and The Holy Dragon Alliance got attack by Laughing Coffin. But after everything that had happened to the front lines they were still about two thousand members strong, and that was just over a fourth of the players in the game. They were going to be the players that saved all of the other players.

"Kirito." Asuna knew that voice well, maybe to well in fact but that didn't stop her from at once turning around on her chair to face none other than the amazing blacksmith, Lizbeth, her best friend.

"Oh, hey Lizbeth how's the shop going?" Kirito asked as he too hand already turnt around his chair to see the blacksmith.

"Not bad not bad at all, you sent in quite a lot of people to my shop a lot more than I expected, how'd you do it?" Lizbeth asked as she acted like a reporter. If she had a paper and pencil, Asuna wouldn't have doubted it for a second.

That got Asuna wondering, how did he get enough people to visit Lizbeth's shop to the point at which she was overflowing with customers. He didn't know all that many people according to herself and Argo though with that said he did know Keita so did he have bunch of other random characters that he knew? That probably wasn't even it, even if it was, Asuna doubted that Keita would have anything to do with it as he quite possibly hated Kirito more than Asuna did, and that there was quite an accomplishment.

"Oh, after everyone came up to congratulate me for beating Heathcliff, I told them all that my sword was custom made from you, It didn't take all that much thought, I mean it's not like the sword you made could blend in, it was quite adept at standing out. I just used it to my advantage and told them who made the sword. They just came to your shop wanting great weapons." Kirito stated kind of nonchalantly.

Asuna did have to admit that even if Kirito's plan wasn't all that Lizbeth had made it out to be or hyped it up to be, she was still rather impressed. Not only did he get a ton of players to visit Lizbeth shop, all he did was tell them who made his sword, quite igneous if Asuna could say so herself.

"Really, why didn't you think of that Asuna." Lizbeth asked as she turned her attention towards her best friend

"What do you mean, I've brought in customers for you." Asuna stated, a little faster than she had anticipated as if she was either embarrassed or just plain nervous.

"Kirito was able to sell out my shop with a single gesture and all you've been able to do is bring in a few people to buy stuff, come on Asuna it's not hard to see who's winning here. Most of them probably did it to get into your pants." Lizbeth stated rather bluntly but all the same it made Asuna blush.

"I brought in Kirito didn't I, and he's one of your regulars that even brings along a hoard of people with him, you have to give me some credit." Asuna stated flabbergasted, that was the best sentence she could come with to defend herself in such a short time frame.

"Okay I'll give you this much." Lizbeth held up her hand to reveal the space between her index finger in her thumb, they were as close as possible with actually touching. Asuna glared. "Okay I'll leave, you want it to turn to the new year without me I get it." This didn't stop Asuna from glaring however the next thing Lizbeth said did. "Here's your chance." Lizbeth whispered in her ear as she walked away.

"I like Lizbeth, she's nice yet she can totally scare me to pieces if I get on the wrong side of her, like you." Kirito stated honestly yet bluntly.

"What do you mean by that." Asuna had kicked her emotions into high gear.

"I mean that you, that, um…" Kirito didn't seem able to form a sentence.

"Come on out with it." Asuna said but she got cut off by a bunch of people talking in unison.

The countdown to the new year was upon them and both Asuna and Kirito had joined the rest of them room at ten. With the amount of people that were there it almost felt like a celebration of everything good that had happened in the year rather than the fact that it was more of celebration to say, you didn't die this year, better luck next time. That was the blunt way to put it at least. Asuna looked over at Kirito while the countdown was still happening. She wanted to survive the next year more than anything, and she wanted Kirito to be along side her, she wanted to meet him in the real world.

"One, HAPPY NEW YEAR!" Everyone had yelled that out and Asuna finally turned back to Kirito the thoughts of what they were talking about before having completely vanished.

"Happy new year, Kirito." Asuna said with a smile.

"Happy new year, Asuna." Kirito returned the favor.

XXXX

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

It's the new year… in the game

Next chapter will be up in a few

Have a great day

-Kirk


	185. Motion

January 1, 2024

-Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Argo, Lizbeth, Silica, Klein, Ran, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

What had happened since last year? This was a question that happened across Sinon's mind far too often during the party and she couldn't really stop her herself from asking it nor answering it. The easiest answer was that people had died and that in itself was tragic and yet everyone was celebrating. Sinon wondered what would the people who died like if they looked down on them right now. Anger, disgust, longing? Just another question that Sinon didn't have an answer for but what she could say was that she feeling at least one of those emotions right now.

Kirito was her friend, wasn't he. Sinon had a hard time placing this one but she knew that in the end he believed that Sinon was his friend. The Black Swordsman however was something different, he was more of an enigma even to the people that knew him best. With of of the clouds surrounding him Sinon had one single fact that held true, he wanted to beat this game more than anything, now was he, her friend? Sinon didn't know. They were two different people and Sinon could only bring herself to say that one of them was her friend with the other was something different, meant for a higher purpose.

"Whatcha thinking about?" Silica said as she plopped herself right next to Sinon.

"Just what had happened over the past year." Sinon stated truthful albeit not exactly on the dot.

"Well last year no doubt has to be the best year of your life." Silica stated as she crossed her legs and put her hands on her head, it was very reminiscent of Saffi.

"And why is that?" Sinon asked, why would the year she had to fight for her life be considered the best year of her life?

"Because you meet me, and we both know that you without me is boring. I mean would you do all day without. You barely even doing anything with me. I add some much needed color into your life." Silica laughed practically the whole way through.

"Not true." Sinon said with a grin on her face.

Out of everything that had happened in the past year, Silica was the light in that year. Truthfully, Sinon didn't know where she would be without her younger friend. She was bubbly, energetic, optimistic and fun, everything that Sinon wasn't and yet they meshed so well together. It wasn't exactly a cohesive friendship but they had forged and friendship that Sinon hoped would last beyond Aincrad. If there was one person that Sinon wanted to get out of this game it was Silica because, Silica deserved to get out of this game more than everyone

"Pina." Silica called out and the dragon returned to her.

Sinon remember that Silica had once told her that she had a cat named Pina and the dragon was basically like that cat expected it could fly and was extremely clumsy. This made Sinon smile even in the depths of a world like this one Silica had found something that she could call home and that would call back to her. Though this did bring up a hard question, when the game ends what happens to Pina. She can't go to the real world because of obvious limitations, the most obvious being she doesn't exist. Would she stay forever trapped in a game with no players or is she free to travel to other games. Sinon hoped for the second option as it would bring more joy to Silica.

"Sinon, why aren't you wearing the glasses, Kirito must have gone through so much to get them for you." Silica stated as she looked at Sinon with a quizzical look.

"Not yet." Sinon stated with an air of finality and absoluteness.

Why wasn't she wearing them, she could answer that in many different ways but she didn't know which one would be true or not. Of course there were a lot of reason in her head, the biggest one being that Kirito is the biggest jerk who ever lived, that was her personal favorite. However, the one that was most likely true was that she didn't want to. It reminded her of being Shino, a scared little girl that never did anything to stand up for herself. And now that she wasn't that she would do everything in her power never to go back.

"You are a weird one." Silica stated with an oddly calculated look, especially for her.

"Not as weird as you." Sinon grinned as her snarky comeback left her mouth.

"You wish." Silica laughed as she walked away to talk to other people at the party.

This left Sinon to wallow in her own mind and thoughts, which was perfectly fine for Sinon, she prefered this actually. What had changed since a year ago. Sinon remembered this time from last year quite vividly, as if it was yesterday or early in the day. But she could now tell that she wasn't the same as she was a year ago. She was stronger amongst other things but most importantly she was confident, a lot more confident than before. However, what she had felt a year ago hadn't changed for some reason it morphed along side her as if it was always perfect. No, she could give into that.

"You know in parties you are supposed to socialize, that's why you came didn't you." Saffi stated as she plopped herself down on top the table and laid down, with her legs laying of the edge. For some reason, this didn't seem in the least bit unusual.

"You know, chairs are meant to be sat on, not the table, that's for food not your back." Sinon retorted in the easiest way she could. "Plus you're wearing a dress, it's improper." Sinon added.

"While I may be improper, you are down right rude. You come to a party and the only people you have talked to are the people you came with. I know you are antisocial, but this is on a whole new level, I mean seriously, why are you even here?" Saffi asked.

Why was she here? Why did she come? The party was hosted by Klein and the rest of Fuurinkazan guild and she didn't know a single one of the other ones, she had probably never even talked to them, much less dedicate space in her brain to their names and appearances. Sinon looked across the room. Why was she even trying to lie to herself? She knew exactly why she was here but what would come of that. Would she even make a move or just shy away. Would she falter halfway through last time or make her imagination run away. Why did she have to be this way?

"Earth to Sinon." Saffi yelled into Sinon's ear cause her to jump out of her seat and fall to the ground in fright. "That's even better the seeing Pina hit the ground after Silica stands up." Saffi laughed like an immature schoolgirl, though that was what she did best in fact.

"I hate you." Sinon stated with a glare in her eyes.

"That's something I've never heard before, most people are jealous of me but to hate that's something different. It feels as though you hit right here, I don't think I can breath." Saffi fainted on the table after pointing at her chest. If Sinon didn't know any better, Saffi's acting skills would've held up but unfortunately for Saffi she did and Sinon paid back Saffi by tickling her foot which, as usual didn't have shoes.

"You jerk." Saffi stated as she bolted to a sitting position for the first time in the conversation. "I have an order for you, and you're going to like this one." Saffi smirked as she looked as though she had gotten the jackpot. "The new year is a time for resolution and your resolution is to make a friend that you spend as much time with as Silica, or at least somewhere close. And that's is an order, if you don't complete it I'll make sure that your life will be the equivalent of nightmare fuel on steroids." Saffi smirked as she walked away, leaving Sinon to think about what had just happened and whether or not she was going to do anything or not.

XXXX

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

New years resolution are fun!

Next chapter(s) will be up next week

Have a wonderful week

-Kirk


	186. Modernistic

January 1, 2024

-Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Argo, Lizbeth, Silica, Klein, Ran, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

"Klein why are you here?" Tsubaki asked as Klein tumbled over to her.

"Well this is my party isn't it." Klein stated he managed to find himself into a chair.

"I got that Klein." Tsubaki retorted as she walked away.

As usual, Klein tried to follow her but this time he could barely get out of his seat much less actually walk. The one benefit of having Klein go after her, the was a chance that he drunk and if he is he can't do much of anything, except make a fool of himself which was admittedly fun to watch. Already at the party he tried to sing, only for everyone in the party to find out he was tone deaf and booed him into silence. Maybe she felt a little bad about that one but it still was funny as hell. And seeing Klein on the ground failing to get back up never fails to make her smile.

"You are mean." A voice behind her said, It was a young feminine voice and there was only a handful of people who had a voice like that. Of course there were the ones that were teenage girls such as herself, Asuna, Sinon, Argo, Lizbeth, Silica, and Ran. Though Tsubaki wouldn't doubt the fact that Saffi could fabricate voice to go along with what a teenage girl might sound like. Then there's Kirito, when he gets excited or his voice cracks that is. It had more often than anyone would have thought and made everyone laugh almost as much as Klein failing to get up off the ground and starting to get increasingly angrier.

"Hey Ran." Tsubaki said in response, not even turning around. She knew that voice from anyway.

"He's actually quite nice." Ran stated, now this made Tsubaki turn around.

"I got that, but I don't need my best friend, who is twelve years old, courting me with some who is literally a decade older I might add." Tsubaki stated with her try at ending the conversation right then and there.

"At least you have a future." Ran stated solemnly.

"Don't try to guilt trip me, it won't work , you know that?" Tsubaki asked rhetorically.

"It always works what are you talking about, I mean seriously, no matter how many you say it doesn't work it always does, you feel sorry for me and want to help don't you?" Ran smirk as she asked her question.

"I.. Shut up." Tsubaki stated defeatedly as she walked towards that exit but Ran didn't follow her.

"You are trying to escape, you are cute." Ran stated with way too much glee for Tsubaki's taste.

"You have no right calling me cute, you are two years younger than me, please I'm stronger than you, we all know that." Tsubaki smirk as she talked without turning around to face Ran.

Tsubaki motioned for Ran to follow and when she didn't, Tsubaki ended up just walking out by herself into the cold air that was outside of it. With the bundles of jackets and other clothes she had brought, Tsubaki didn't feel the cold but she could see the snow falling to the ground and start to pile up in the streets. The snow that piling up in the street making it hard to walk and to get to certain stores. Most people would've just considered the snow on the ground an annoyance more than anything but to Tsubaki it looked amazing.

"Stunning isn't it?" Ran asked as she walked outside and into the cold winter air.

"Does it snow like this back in the real world?" Tsubaki, ignoring Ran's question asked one of her one, one that she deemed a lot more important that the one that both of them knew the answer to.

"It does, but not really this much in Japan, you'll have to go abroad to see this much snow in the area, or maybe a blizzard would cause this much snow. I haven't experienced a blizzard though." Ran answered her Tsubaki's question with ease.

"It's amazing." Tsubaki said as she reached her hand out to grab a snowflake to broke as it touched her finger. "I never want to leave." Tsubaki whispered as the broken pieces of that snowflake presumably fell to the ground, she couldn't see it anymore but she could imagine what would have happened.

"What did you say?" Ran asked as she turned on her feet to face Tsubaki, apparently her whisper hadn't been as good as she thought it was, or maybe Ran had as good of her as herself.

"Nothing." Tsubaki stated briskly and hastily. Maybe too hastily as if she was giving something away. That in itself isn't every good as even though she loved Ran with all of her heart, Ran she was nosy and had a bad habit of not knowing when to stop. What would she do if Ran asked again, punch her, that may work but everyone told her violence wasn't the answer. Then what were they supposed to do with the floor bosses, have tea with them before they disappear. As much as people told her that violence wasn't an option Tsubaki believed it more and more, well how else are you supposed to get past a dragon with half dragonling on it's back?

"Are you su-." Then she was cut of not by Tsubaki but more like herself or at least something close to it. Ran immediately fell to the ground as if all of the strength had left her legs and there was only useless jelly in it's place.

"Are you okay." Tsubaki had instantly rushed to Ran's side, forgetting everything that had just transpired as all that mattered right now was making sure her friend was safe and okay. Nothing, else mattered to her.

"It's happening again." Ran stated as she tried to get up off the ground but failed miserably. Every part of her body had instantly turned weak and frail as if she had aged one hundred years in just a couple of seconds.

"What does it feel like this time?" Tsubaki asked as she put her arms around Ran and managed to bring her to her feet.

Last time it had felt as though millions of daggers were attacking her back but this it was nothing of the sort, as if they had learn from their past mistakes and was making it easier for Ran to handle instead of you know, assaulting her back with quite possibly more needles that Ran could ever bother counting.

"I don't feel anything, there is a distinct lack of of strength right here." Ran placed her had on her stomach. "If anything it feels as though someone took my stomach and somehow pulled it out of me but didn't leave any pain behind, just emptiness." Ran stated as she began to fall again, her legs weren't really cooperating with her. But Tsubaki wouldn't let that happened, as she had made it her responsibility to keep Ran upright.

"What do you think they are doing?" Tsubaki asked as they continued to walk on, it was slow moving but thankfully their inn room wasn't too far away from the party.

"I think they realized that I could feel the pain so the numbed the area before they started the procedure, it seems as though the nervegear can't block out all of the inputs from the real world." Ran laughed dryly as she slowly tried to walked on the snow covered ground.

"We know that better than anyone doubt we, I mean who else in the game is having their body operated on, no one that's who. At least I think they're done with me for now." Tsubaki stated.

What she had felt was nothing compared to what Ran was feeling. Hers was more mellow and she had only had a couple of times where they had been operating on her. It was near the beginning of the game, when everyone was still on floor one and it felt as though there was sharp pain all over her body but the pain was somehow dulled as if her body wasn't responding, but after a while it got worse. And then without even a clue that it was going to stop it disappeared without a trace.

"Come on let's get you into bed." Tsubaki stated as they trudged along.

"Thank you for helping me, I doubt know what I would do without you." Ran stated with obviously glee even though her face was covered with pain.

"Just returning the favor." Tsubaki smiled.

XXXX

It's the new year!

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter will be up a few

Have a great day

-Kirk


	187. Model

January 7, 2024

-Ran and Tsubaki-

"Watch this." Tsubaki said as she positioned her hand by her side.

It was as if she was going to pull a sword out of it's sheath however there was neither a sword nor a sheath at her side. Nonetheless, Tsubaki continued the action and about halfway through Ran began to the purple blob that they had identified as a shapeshifting familiar start to take shape in Tsubaki's open hand. At first it just looked like a stick in her hand but the closer she got to being in rest position the more defined it got until it had an almost uncanny resemblance to her first sword, the xiphos. Even down to the color it was completely the same.

"That's amazing, what else can it do?" Ran asked as though she was on the edge of her seat.

To be fair Tsubaki be too if she was on the other side but she wasn't as she was looking forward to showing off with her new piece of equipment or rather her new familiar. Tsubaki smiled as she moved the shapeshifter, who was currently a sword in a circular motion until at once it turned into a perfectly round shield. It had just the right dimensions to work and Tsubaki didn't even have to pull it out of her inventory. All she had to do was imagine the shapeshifter turning into what she wanted and it happened. Granted it was a little harder than just imaging it but the concept was practically the same.

"I can turn it into anything." Tsubaki smiled as she spun the shield but didn't make it change into anything different.

"Anything?' Ran said as if to test if she actually could.

Tsubaki thought for a second about what she should change it to, there was a bunch of options but she wanted to do something that actually meant something. Turning it into a frisbee while quite unheard of would not serve any real purpose but then she had an idea one that she wanted to see if her familiar could do. Because if it could then she would really want to start testing the limits of what the game had programed her familiar to be able to turn into. Holding the shield in her hand, Tsubaki turned the shield into a purple headband.

"Is this what it looked like?" Tsubaki asked as she showed Ran the headband. It was completely purple, not a spec of any other color to be seen.

"It had some red on it but yeah." Ran said as she took the headband into her hand and grasped it for a moment. This moment to her felt like a lifetime when in reality it was only a couple of seconds. Ran gave it back to Tsubaki, although hesitantly. "So it can turn into anything then." ran stated as soon the headband left her palm.

"I guess." Tsubaki stated as she looked down at the headband, she never thought she would get to see what one of these looked like.

"I have any idea, make wings." Ran stated with a huge smile that tsubaki could tell was somewhat forced yet cheerful nonetheless.

"Then I could fly." Tsubaki stated with some childish glee. Imagining herself having to sets of wings on her back, Tsubaki closed her eyes so that they would appear and then she opened them. On her back were two dragon wings, connected in the middle. "Wow." Tsubaki exclaimed as she looked at them.

"Try to fly." Ran stated with much of the same glee that Tsubaki had.

Closing her eyes, Tsubaki jumped up into the air, only make a small hop instead of the easy flight she had been envisioning. First she has to flap the wings, but how exactly does she do that, wait their not her wings, it's her familiar's so if she tells her familiar to move then they will, right. As it turns out, Tsubaki was right and the wings started to flap. Tsubaki then jumped into the air and maintain height and kept going higher until an air current caught her a pushed her around until finally at last she fell into the ground.

"Maybe I should try that another time." Tsubaki once she had finally gotten up off the ground.

"I don't know, it was nice seeing you fall to the ground at mock speed." Ran grinned and Tsubaki scowled. "Want to duel, I want to see your ability with that shapeshift, I bet I can still beat you." Ran said with a huge grin as she sent tsubaki a duel request.

"Get ready to face your match Aiko Konno." Tsubaki stated as she accepted and fell back into an unarmed stance.

Truth be told she hadn't used this stance much at all but she trained to be able to at least function without a weapon so that's how she was going to start out and when need, she would transition into countering Ran with a sword rather than her two hands. There was no way that she would be able to Ran without a sword she knew that but that didn't mean there wasn't something to gained from doing. Tsubaki and Ran both watched as the timer hit zero and Ran having her sword already out started her assault

Ran dash at her with amazing speed and Tsubaki instantly recognized the form she was using. Neither one of them have a form of swordplay that they constantly use however, Ran takes forms from other people and uses them usually at the beginning of a duel. In the other stages of the battle she uses her opponent's form against them but as she hadn't seen their form yet, Ran has to fabricate one for herself and this time it seems based and the style of running and the sword her being parallel to the ground that she had taken upon using The Lightning Flash Asuna's form.

A perfect counter to unarmed users, there was no way Tsubaki could match Asuna's form without a weapon or at the very least a shield. Seemingly at of nowhere Tsubaki formed a shield on her left arm. Her shapeshifter had taken to sleeping at the center of Tsubaki's lower back when Tsubaki was not using it. Tsubaki didn't mind it at all as the shapeshifter was barely even noticeable and it was quick and easy to transform it into anything from there. The shield had countered Ran's chosen form perfectly and gave Tsubaki the chance to go on the offense

It didn't even take a second for her to head on the offensive. Almost instantaneously her shield turned into a rapier and managed switch to her right side instead of her left. Tsubaki sent a flurry of linear's at Ran. There was no way block a defend all of the strikes however Tsubaki knew that Ran had one very good option, to jump back and avoid all of them, which she did. This had of course been anticipated and Tsubaki turned her rapier into a spear and pushed Ran back further but could no longer be on the offensive as he last attack wouldn't be able to transition all that well into anything else.

Now it was Ran's turn and she was using her sword as though it was a spear, quite odd yet surprisingly effective. Ran over their time in Aincrad had learned to use her spear in the weirdest of ways and this was one of them, however they were all effective. Once again Tsubaki had to turn her familiar back into a shield and blocked Ran's wide blows which were becoming increasingly more taxing to block, much to Tsubaki's dismay. She knew that if she kept at this Ran would widdle her down until she gave her an open and she would lose, she couldn't let that happen.

Using her shield, Tsubaki deflected the next strike and pushed it up and out of her way, then transformed her shield into a sword, a xiphos to be exact. Then she flew forward with a linear in front of her. There was no way that Ran could get out of the way of the strike and blocked it with a sword was out of the question, only deflecting could stop her attacking and then Tsubaki realized it a little too late. She had played right into Ran's hand, and fell into Ran's trap and it was too late to back out. Tsubaki had unfortunately activated the skill Ran had been making for the past months. To be fair it wasn't an actual sword skill but it was as close as anything could get. Eight strikes hit Ran's sword and disarmed her then there was a blade centimeters away from her neck.

"I win." Ran grinned as she retracted her sword and sheathed it on her side.

"Not cool." Tsubaki stated as she picked up her familiar.

"And you were." Ran laughed.

XXXX

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Ran is strong! For a thirteen year old at least

Next Chapter(s) will be up a week

Have a wonderful week

-Kirk


	188. Methodical

January 13, 2024

-Kirito and Asuna-

"You ready?" Kirito stated with a huge smile on his face.

"You scared punk." Asuna smiled as she readied her sword.

"Never." Kirito grinned.

"Let's do this then." Asuna said as she pointed her sword at Kirito

Kirito grinned back and the both turned away from each other Asuna was ready to pound Kirito into the ground like it was nothing. They were out in a dungeon on one of the earlier floors and were about to face off against each other. While Kirito may infamous around Aincrad, so was she and today she would teach Kirito that she was stronger than he was no matter what. They were playing a game of sorts, how many of the wasps can you kill in a minute. There was no doubt in her mind that she the advantage but maybe she was just over exaggerating everything in her mind. That didn't matter now, all that mattered was winning.

"Start." Kirito stated and they both flew off killing as many as they could.

If could've counted with her mind she would've liked to but her mind was way to over productive at the moment to actually do anything productive. She didn't have to win did she? What is she lost, would he think less of her? She had to win. Kirito wouldn't care about that, would he? No, Asuna would like to believe that Kirito wasn't as narrow mind as the rest of the game's players. However, at around five, she lost count of the number of count of the number of wasps that had died by her blade. Thankful she could just check her log and see how many times she gained an insignificant number of experiance points.

"End." Kirito said aloud after Asuna had heard a buzzing sound come from where Kirito had been. It was over before Asuna's mind even had a chance to catch up to the present.

"How many did you get?" Asuna asked as she racked up her total, it was a lot more than she had thought she had gotten.

"Twenty seven, how about you." Kirito stated without any smugness. That was unusual in the game as almost every player want to brag, especially to her but Kirito on the other hand seemed content to

"Thirty four." Asuna said proudly with a huge smile on her face.

"No fair, I would like to you get twenty seven with this heavy sword rather than that light piece of metal." Kirito pouted but it was obvious to Asuna that he really didn't care he was just trying to be playful.

"Well it's not your monstrous strength is doing anything, while my speed stat is running circles around, just face Rapier users are better than the other sword users." Asuna stated with a huge smiled pointed at Kirito.

"You wish." Kirito stated as he finally closed his menu and sheathed his sword on his back, "So where do you want to eat, I don't know anywhere good that we haven't already been to." Kirito stated as his tone changed completely had he looked straight at Asuna.

"What?" Asuna said, she was taken aback by the sudden shift in Kirito's tone and she had genuinely been instantly confused by Kirito.

"You won the bet, I have to take you out to eat, that was the deal right?" Kirito asked as he looked towards Asuna, he was a perfect gentleman. This was what every other player was missing.

"You don't have to do that, it was just for fun, betting you was the satisfaction I need." Asuna stated with a kind grin.

"No no, I'll make good on the bet, come on, I know where we could eat." Kirito stated as he started to walk of. Asuna could have tried to dissuade him otherwise, but she doubted that she would be successful as Kirito was stubborn. Once he had his mind set on doing something he was going to do it, and he wouldn't let anyone stop. She loved that about him, it was endearing. She could always count on Kirito even if it's not exactly what she wants, almost every time in the end it turns out to something she can appreciate and cherish. Asuna couldn't find a better way to spend her time.

"Are you coming?" Kirito asked as he saw Asuna immobile in the middle of the area where they had been killing wasps.

"Yeah, let's go." Asuna said she came out of mind. She was a little bit embarrassed but she that Kirito wouldn't get hung up on her getting lost in thought.

"You're not that hungry, right?" Kirito asked once Asuna had caught up to him

"Not really, why?" Asuna answered with another question. A grin grew across Kirito's face as he opened his menu and took out a teleportation crystal.

"The I have a perfect place, come on." Kirito said as he grabbed Asuna hand and placed a teleportation in between their two hands. Even though Kirito was speaking in a loud voice so that the game could hear him, Asuna had no clue what he had said, the next thing she knew was that they were on floor seventeen and the sound of rushing water had evaded her ears.

"Where are we going?" Asuna asked as Kirito pull up and map and kept turning the way he was facing until he seemingly got the right direction.

"You'll see, now come on." Kirito said as he ushered Asuna over to follow.

Without a second thought or any hesitation, Asuna did so all they started to follow one of the rivers. The sound echoing from it felt calm and in a way it calmed asuna, but not by much anyways. They were walking side by side and Asuna couldn't think of what do with her hands. There was something she wanted to do of course but would she do it, probably not. With some self loathing, Asuna put both of her hands behind her back and continued to walk next to Kirito. She would give anything to have that type of courage.

"Is this it?" Asuna asked as they walked in front a small shop not exactly in the best location.

"Yes, I'm a regular here." Kirito stated as he walked into the small yet cozy little store.

"So this is where Kirito-sama spends most of his time, how fascinating." Asuna teased as she walked into the store. It was a small store but unlike most places this place was a specialty store, it was a bakery. Her statement had earned an annoyed look from Kirito as he walked up to the counter and order their food.

"Can I have two sandwiches?" Kirito stated as he placed the correct amount of col on the counter.

"Same as usual?" This made Kirito look back at Asuna then look forward once more as he was relieved that they had asked him that question.

"Take the spicy stuff of one, thanks." Kirito stated as he walked away from the counter, leaving the payment on the counter.

"You eat here a lot?" Asuna asked as they sat down at one of the few tables inside the store, there were a couple outside but Asuna did want the warmth of the inside currently as the winter air wasn't exactly soothing even if the splashing water was.

"I ate here when I was playing by myself, though I usually took it out. This place is fast, easy and tasty and that was really all I wanted." Kirito stated and almost directly after he had finished speaking they had gotten their food.

"That was fast, almost too fast." Asuna stated as she eyed her sandwich suspiciously.

"If you say so." Kirito stated as he picked up the sandwich, took a bit and chewed a bit before he swallowed it. "As good as I remembered." Kirito stated with a huge smile as he went in for more bits.

Asuna hesitated a bit but eventually she stopped herself and took a bite of the sandwich. It was by no means the best thing she had ever ate in Aincrad but it put up a fair fight. For a sandwich enthusiast like Kirito she could see how this sandwich would be amazing and she had to admit, even if Kirito never brought her back to this small shop on this random floor, she would come on her own, it was that good.

"This is good." Asuna stated

"What'd you expect, something that tasted horrible." Kirito said sarcastically as he took a bite of his sandwich. Asuna had one thought in her mind at the moment, she wanted to make Kirito something.

XXXX  
Sandwiches!

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter will be up in a few

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	189. Means

January 21, 2024

-Kirito and Silica-

"So we have to work together then." Kirito stated as he sat down on his chair.

"Yep!" Silica stated just a little bit more excitedly then should really be used during a time like this.

They had both just accepted helping another player from the lower floors with a rather sad problem, if Kirito could say so. It's not everyday that someone survives after their entire died, or maybe it was since Kirito had been able to do it, but besides the player they were helping out and himself he didn't know anyone else who had managed to get themselves trapped in such a bad situation. That, in essence was why he wanted to help out, it wasn't everyday that something like this happened and Kirito knew just how terrible it was for the player.

"I have a plan." Kirito stated with a whole lot more confidence then he was used to.

"Let's hear it." Silica stated as she sat up completely straight and lost the childhood innocence to her voice, she was now serious, or at least more serious than she had ever been before in her life.

"One of us will have to go undercover, I suggest you since I'm quite well known, even past the front line floors, while you aren't as well known, though we'll need to find a way for you to leave Pina behind as it would give you away too easily." Kirito stated as he looked at the tiny dragon who was trying to take the cap of the pepper shaker.

"That's no problem, I could leave Pina with Sinon, Pina won't fly all the way back to be if he is near some he knows, and he knows Sinon the most. Plus I can always just either guilt trip her into pet sitting or blackmail her, either way will work." Silica stated all too nonchalantly.

"I don't think you'll need to blackmail her." Kirito stated with a slight smile as Pina finally got the lid off and pepper spilled everywhere. Kirito had easily cleaned up the majority of the pepper before Silica even got the chance to help.

"Why, wouldn't it be fun." Silica stated as she got Pina into her lap.

"Not for Sinon." Kirito said.

"You're a fun Nazi." Silica said as feigned being sad as she pouted at Kirito.

"You you'll have to make the guild want to go after you." Kirito stated completely ignoring the last comment from Silica.

Their target was a red guild more orange since the red guild statis really was reserved for Laughing Coffin and Laughing Coffin alone. From what Kirito could tell, their leaves paled in comparison to Laughing Coffins levels and was non-existent to theirs. In theory all they had to do was find them then send them to the newly constructed jail. This however did involve tricking an orange guild and orange groups as a collection were incredibly hard to trick as they were incredible at deception and overall trickery. In essence they had to trick them at their own game.

"And how am I supposed to do that?" Silica stated as she took a drink of drink. Kirito believed it was juice but as he wasn't there when she ordered it he couldn't be sure.

"We know one player from the guild, the most important one, the one green player. All you have to do is get into a party with her and show this in a battle." Kirito pulled out a dagger, quite a fancy dagger, fancier than almost everything Silica had ever seen. "It's an extremely rare drop from a goblin on floor thirty three." Kirito stated as he gave her the dagger.

"How rare?" Silica asked as she looked over the golden blade.

"From what Argo tells me this is the third one that she knows of, if there is any more then the person who got it has it lying in their inventory collecting up dust." Kirito stated.

"How'd you get it?" Silica asked as she placed the dagger on the table and looked at Kirito.

"I think I spent a little too much time in that dungeon." Kirito stated with an air of mystery.

"A little too much, what's the percent that the goblins will drop this?" Silica asked as she looked at Kirito intently.

"Argo theorised that the drop rate was somewhere around point zero zero one percent. And the goblin that can drop has a spawn rate of seven percent." Kirito stated as he thought back to one of his encounters with Argo. "You will have to use that dagger to try and entice the green player to want to steal it from you, it shouldn't be too hard with a weapon like that." Kirito stated.

"Who do I have to get the attention of?" Silica asked yet another question. Kirito had gotten all of the information before Silica had been to come over say she wanted to help, so Kirito was left with the awful task of telling Silica everything.

"Here names is Rosalia, here's a picture of her." Kirito stated as he pushed a picture of a woman to Silica. Her skin color was light along with crimson hair. If Kirito had to guess she was somewhere in her late teens early twenties, though he could be wrong. She wore a black and red outfit that matched her hair almost too perfectly as if her hair had been made for her attire.

"Is there anything outstanding about her?" Silica stated as she looked at the picture.

"I crossed checked everything with Argo already, there isn't anything we know about other than her name and her face, she was excellent at clearing tracks. In fact Argo didn't even know that she was a part of an orange guild though she had her doubts towards though. In fact the leader of the silver flags knew more on her than Argo did." Kirito stated.

"Now that's an achievement." Silica stated with a laugh as she pushed the picture back to Kirito.

"Yeah, Argo took it as a strike at her ego and now is in super sentai mode." Kirito grinned as her though of Argo widening her web of contacts.

"What was the guild called?" Silica asked.

"Titan's hand." Kirito responded without a second though, as if it had been programed into his mind. "They're primarily a thief guild but aren't afraid to get their hands dirty, they don't have the levels to match us however." Kirito stated.

Silica sat in contemplation for a couple of moments before she looked up at Kirito and started to speak, "What exactly are you doing in all of this?" Silica stated with her head slightly turned as if quizzical.

"My plan basically was to trap them in this." Kirito stated as he pulled out what seemed to be a huge teleportation crystal. "It can teleport an infinite amount of players at once and we would teleport them directly in front of the fail that The Knights of the Blood Oath have made. I'm going to get Kazuma to give me his okay on that. But in order to trap them we are going to need to shock them and surround them. Basically we give them the question fight us or go to jail, your choice." Kirito stated with a bit of sarcasm at the end.

"That seems like it will work." Silica stated as she thought the plan over and over again to find any holes in it.

"I basically bring the plan, the brains, the materials, and the contacts to this operation while you bring the fact that everyone in Aincrad doesn't know you." Kirito stated bluntly.

"You make it sound as though you are a celebrity." Silica said with a slight laugh.

"I can see it now, Kirito,The Black Swordman of Aincrad, renowned for his talent and skill everywhere." Kirito said as he stood up and waved an imaginary sword.

"You should put that sword down before you pop your big head." Silica retorted. "When should we start this plan then?" Silica asked once Kirito fell back into his seat

"I was thinking after the next boss raid." Kirito stated.

"Awesome see you then." Silica said as she stood up a left.

XXXX

And episode four starts

Hope you all enjoyed Silica

Next chapter(s) will up in a week

Have a wonderful week

-Kirk


	190. Patriot

January 22, 2024

-Sinon and Silica-

"You're working with Kirito?" Sinon said as though she had lost all air in her lungs.

"Yes we are going to try and catch a player killing guild." Silica said a little bit too enthusiastically, especially for something as deep as a player kill guild.

"What!" Sinon exclaimed. There was no way Silica could take on a player killing guild, even with Kirito to back her up. Especially if Kirito was the only backing her up. On the front lines they were currently talking about about taking on a player killing guild, the strongest one that Aincrad has or ever will have. Right now they will talking about being forty players to assault them, and they haven't found Laughing Coffin's base yet. There was no way Silica could take on more than three players let alone a whole guild and she couldn't take it even with Kirito to stand behind her.

"How big is this guild?" Sinon asked before she got too far ahead of herself.

"We don't know, all we know is that they have green player in their guild to drag in new people to steal from." Silica stated with a little bit of a downcasted look.

"So they could have upwards of twenty people." Sinon states with a little bit of a, I knew it tone.

"Well, Argo believes they have somewhere near ten players, and Kirito thinks we can all take them one, they don't seem like they are true killers." Silica stated, with somewhat of an official voice but she could tell the flaws in her statement.

"Don't seem like they are true killers, what does that mean?" Sinon questioned Silica's statement.

"Most reports of this guild aren't from survivors but from the victims, most reports are of them stealing items and not even caring about how many people know about them as no one in the middle guilds care about them, I believe that the players that died towards them put up resistance rather than just letting themselves get robbed." Silica stated.

"But they still aren't afraid of killing you, what if they kill you?" Sinon asked as she held Silica's hand.

"Trust me, I won't let that happen, nor will I allow to take care of Pina for forever, I have to come back for Pina's sake, if not yours. Plus they aren't exactly high level players, they'll have to really try if they want to take me down." Silica stated as she straighten her back and put her fist over her hand as if she was a soldier.

"Why are you doing this?" Sinon asked without even thinking, hoping that Silica wouldn't make her feel too bad that she asked a question like that.

"Well besides the fact that we can't let killers run amuck in the game everything will just fall into chaos." Silica used her, you've gotta be kidding me voice. "You should've seen how distraught the survivor of this guild was, it was like he had lost everything and in it's place was a hole of nothingness, His only goal in life at that moment was to get revenge on the people who had killed his friends, and it wasn't the first he had journeyed to the front lines to seek help. He must've been up there for a week before a walked up to him." Silica stated as she remembered the event very clearly.

"Imagine you had just lost everything, everyone that you hold dear to a couple of other human beings and you know who they are but you are powerless to do anything, what would you do? He decided that wasn't going to wait around for them to have a chance at killing another player and he was going to everything within his power to take them down, so he did. He found out everything he could about the guild, Titan's Hand as they had named it, more than even argo had found out about this guild. Think about how much effort that would've taken especially without any contacts, that is why I am doing this, to help a lost soul who has done all he could to seek revenge but couldn't go any further." Silica stated as she looked down at her hands, they were clenched.

"I understand." Sinon stated as she looked down at her hands.

How could she be so heartless, Silica didn't need a reason to do this, no one needed a reason to do this. It was the right thing to do. The question she had just asked didn't need to have an answer as the answer was already known to everyone, even left unsaid everyone knew the answer. Silica had to do this because it was the right thing to do, not for any other reason. Both Silica and Kirito were about to serve their unique kind of justice, the right kind of justice. They were going to avenge the deaths of follow players by putting their killers in jail. Sinon stood up from her chair and walked over to the window.

"How long will you be gone?" Sinon asked without looking back at Silica, there was a inkling of tears form on her face.

"I don't know, I'll leave after this next boss raid." Silica stated and Sinon could hear her chair moving as though Silica was getting out of it, Sinon however didn't move.

"And I'll have Pina during the whole entire operation." Sinon stated, she already knew this but repeating herself gave her some solace.

"Yes, should would give away who I am and I can't have that, the whole operation is based on my ability to lure Rosalia into a trap, and Pina isn't going to help that." Silica stated, her voice getting ever closer.

Then Silica's arms were around Sinon's waist. While not being the tallest person ever, compare to Silica, Sinon actually had some and this was made all the more apparent in this moment. Sinon could tell that Silica wasn't leaning down to hug her but her arms are hugging her just below her chest. And yet no matter how awkward it felt or sounded, to Sinon it felt nice. She couldn't remember the last time someone had held her, it was nice. Even if that person was younger than her and she was her boss.

"I won't leave you, Sinon." Silica stated quietly and yet the words echoed throughout Sinon's mind like there was no tomorrow. "We will both make it out of this game alive and on the other side we will learn to get back into shape, even if into shape means two below average height girls." Silica stated with a Laugh

"You're below average, I'm just fine." Sinon stated without a little bit of that so called humor that Silica had told her that she had somewhere inside of her.

"Stupid I was trying to make a heartfelt moment and you go and mess it with lines like that." Silica laughed as she pushed herself off of Sinon and stood right behind Sinon just mere centimeters away from touching her body. "We'll be fine, we're going to beat this game and move on into the real world as best friends for life, right?" Silica stated as she turned Sinon around with her own two hands.

"Yeah." Sinon said as she smiled down at Silica and Silica smiled back up at her, an even wider smile than anything Sinon had ever seen before.

"As you best friend then I demand to know why you hate Kirito soo much." Silica stated as she clapped her hands together with a surprisingly sinister smile to top it all off.

"I wouldn't even tell my mother that." Sinon stated.

"Of course you wouldn't but your friend you might, right." Silica wiggled her entire body as though she was trembling in anticipation. Sinon gave Silica her trademarked don't even try look at Silica smiled. "Pina, Bubbles!" Silica shouted and Pina shout bubbles out of her mouth and literally covered the whole room and Silica was no where insight. The bubbles went away after a couple of moments but with their disappearance it didn't mark Silica's reappearance. "Hello." Silica tapped Sinon's shoulder from behind and laughed.

"You're an idiot." Sinon stated.

"No, I'm your idiot." Silica smiled.

XXXX

Hello again

Hope you all enjoyed Silica, I sure did

Next chapter will be up in a few

Have a great day

-Kirk


	191. Party

January 25, 2024

-Silica-

"Good Luck!" These were the last words that Kirito said to her and she didn't know how she was really supposed to do this. Go up to people and talk to them? She had no experience of ever trying to do this, her last attempt to talk to make a friend started with her brother dying, so it wasn't exactly the best of examples to use. And on top of that she was supposed to make friends with a person who had effectively killed some players. Well, while she didn't actually kill them being an accessory was just as bad, right? Not like that mattered right now.

Silica was spinning the dagger between her fingers as she sat in patience as she waited for some people to arrive other than the two fourteen year old players that were staring at her. It was somewhat flattering but after about twenty it turned into downright creepy, they hadn't even moved a muscle. Silica hypothesised that they would stare at her until she actually started to move or otherwise made it so their stare was no longer on her. The dagger that was weaving in and out of her fingers was going faster than she had ever done so before.

One of the things Kirito had taught her to do was spin and dagger between her fingers, though he said that most of it's uses lie in school when you are extremely bored. This made Silica wonder for a moment since why would he have a dagger at school and she realized that it was probably a pencil or pen that he used to do this. Silica now felt stupid. Tired of waiting in somewhat of an official manner, Silica stopped playing the expensive dagger, placed it on the table the laid her head down in her arms, which were also on the table. The next thing she knew was that someone was tapping her shoulder.

"What?" Silica asked, slightly annoyed, though that was mainly from being awakened after such a good sleep.

"Are you Silica?" The player who tapped her shoulder asked. It was a male but not much older than herself, Silica would say somewhat around Kirito's age though he had more of a bulky build and his voice was quite a bit deeper.

"Yes." Silica stated groggily as she held out her hand to greet him. Now that she was somewhat awake she took some time to look at the players the were standing above, that made her feel small. The was four player surrounding her, and two of them were the players who were staring at her, she smiled meekly when her eyes passed over them. There was the player that woke her up and to her surprise Rosalia, this may be easier than she though.

"We saw your ad on the board and we would like you to join us." Once again the player who tapped her shoulder stated, as he held out his hand to her. "Please, we would love to have you in our party." The player stated. Silica didn't doubt the sincerity one bit.

"Alright then." Silica stated as she stood up and shook hands with the player.  
"Great then names are in order." The player said as he went to introduce himself and the other three players with him. Silica while she listen she didn't really absorb any of it, now was the actual hard part, getting Rosalia to try and attack her with her guild. She has to be somewhat skilled but not to the point of where it would blow her cover. However she had to be at the point where Rosalia wanted to bring the whole orange guild not just some of it.

"What level are you?" One of the otakus asked. Silica had taken to calling in her head after they had been staring at her for a good ten minutes.

"I'm level forty three." Silica stated. Kirito had told her this number, it would be slightly higher than the rest of the players but not so much so that she would be too far out of their reach. Also it would entice Rosalia into bringing her whole guild instead of just herself.

"Neat , Rosalia here is level thirty nine, I'm level forty one, and those two jokers are level forty." The leader said or at least who Silica had presumed to be the leader. Silica her two identical heys at the same time from the two players, they were like twins or life long friends.

"Shall we head out to the dungeons?" Silica asked as she accepted the request to join the party that was sent by Rosalia funnily enough. This made Silica wonder for a few seconds why Rosalia would send it but all that Silica could land on was that she was eager to get Silica's gear.

Truth be told Silica would've been just as eager if it had been a month or two ago. The gear that she and Kirito had chosen for her was some of the rarest items you could get in mid level floors at the moment, even down to her shoes. Silica was in a primarily red outfit with black leggings, undershirt and shirt and gold highlights to finish it off. This outfit she liked a lot more than her usual blue black outfit that she wore as it popped out more and as Kirito said she looked like a little ball of fire. Of course Silica went to punch him but Kirito who must've had to much experience with getting punched dodged her's and laughed

"What weapons do you all wield?" Silica asked as she looked towards the player who she had presumed to be the leader but he was not the first one to speak, it seemed like one of the otaku's was extra hyper to tell her.

"I wield a shield and and sword, I will protect you." he said extra hyperly as he saluted her then bowed. Silica smiled towards this.

"She doesn't need protecting, she needs support, and my bow and arrows will give it to her." the other otaku said as he too bowed.

"You're just to afraid to get hit." The other one said back then they got into a duel of words. From the looks on the everyone else's faces Silica could tell that this type of action was normal for them. Silica laughed as she watched both of them go back and forth between each other, neither gaining much ground until they were broken up.

"I don't think Silica needs help from a bunch of otaku's like yourself." Rosalia stated as she walked in between them, rudely but effectively breaking them up nonetheless. "Don't mind them they're always like this, I wield a spear by the way." She stated as she looked down at Silica as if she was a little girl.

"I wield a two handed long sword." The leader stated as he imagined that he had a long sword in his hands and was doing a downwards vertical. Silica would go one step above him.

"I wield dual daggers." Silica stated as she took the daggers out and brandished them but not letting any of the blade's get close to any of her party members.

"Wow, those look impressive, can I see?" One of the otaku's stated as he this amazed look in his eyes. Silica promptly handed one to him and one to the other otaku who had the same look in his eyes but was a tad bit too late at asking. "Where did you get them from?" The same otaku said after she had gotten both of her blades back.

"This one." Silica held up the fancy dagger that Kirito had given her. "I got from a really rare drop from a goblin on floor thirty three." Silica stated as she looked at the blade once more, it was an incredible blade, she could even use it at her level if she wanted to and not be disappointed.

"Can I see it?" Rosalia asked and Silica promptly handed her the blade then went on the explain how she had gotten the other one. It was made from Lizbeth when she was a level forty and that was exactly the truth.

However her eyes had not left Rosalia since she had given her the blade. The look on Rosalia's face was akin to something she would see from Argo and she knew exactly what it meant. For Argo it meant that there was a lot that she would do to get that item while Silica hypothesised that Rosalia would literally do anything to get it. Rosalia had taken the bait, now all Silica would have to do was reel her in, the fun part as Kirito had called it. This made Silica want to punch Kirito as she knew that this part was going to be a lot harder than anything else.

XXXX

You ready for Episode 4, cause I am

Hope you all enjoyed more Silica

Next chapter(s) will be up in a week

Have a great day

-Kirk


	192. Portion

January 28, 2024

-Silica and Rosalia-

"Ready!" The leader shouted as they saw a troll in front of them. Silica heard the murmurs of yes from the other players surrounding her as she pulled out her dual daggers and also said yes.

Both Silica and the leader rushed the troll as all the other players stayed behind. Of course this was usual for the bow wielding otaku but the other two were going to be the alternates. Silica was fine with this as she got to show off her skill and that's all she was meant to be doing. All she need to do was to entice Rosalia to want to kill her, you know simple stuff. The easiest way to do this was to show some prowess with her dagger but be not the best dagger user. Silica needed Rosalia to believe that she needed a whole guild to take on Silica safely.

The sword user did a wide vertical which if the troll had been caught in it, would've killed it in one shot but the troll was unfortunately not an inanimate object and moved out of the way, directly into Silica path. Already in a run, Silica leaned her momentum forward and lean backwards so that she slid straight through the troll's legs which she did. As she did so both of her daggers nicked at the beasts ankles. Not anywhere near the most effective attack but it served to piss of the troll more than anything else. Then another troll drop from the trees above, now they had two ten foot monsters attacking them, that certainly was helpful.

"It got this one." Silica stated as she dodged the trolls club. While Silica doubted that it could do any meaningful damage it would still hurt and that really wasn't an option for Silica. Believe it or not, Silica prefered to not feel a club that was larger than herself hit her anywhere on her body. Maybe she would have to let at least nick her, to make it more believable. Yes, that was what she was going to do, it was going to nick her, not enough to do any damage even if she was a lower level but enough to show that wasn't the strongest player ever. To offset her folly she would then kill the troll single handedly.

Silica dodged the troll's club that basically look like a softball player had just miss the ball, Silica of course being the softball. In the split second that she had to make to make a decision, there was two options that she saw. The troll's hands were completely open and she could stab them or she could again slip in between the troll's legs. It did not take any time at all to make her decision, as she knew what she had to do. The worst decision not matter how much her body told her not to, she knew it was the better decision. Diving, Silica slipped through the troll's legs once more, again nicking it's leg.

Then the troll did something that she would never expect it, the troll continued through it's attack much further than the regular batter and hit silica upwards. A crash of blue nearby told her that every player was watching her and she immediately knew what she had to do. Since she was wielding two daggers she would have to get rid of one since it prevented her from using skills. Silica choose to throw the dagger at the trolls wrist which it hit and made it lose it stance. That would make her plan a lot easier. Silica activated one of her sword skills and drove it down, straight through the troll, bisecting it.

"That was awesome!" Both of the otaku's exclaimed as they helped her up. Silica smiled and used their help to get back on to her two feet and balanced again. That hit from the troll definitely took a lot of air out of her.

"You're very strong." Rosalia in what Silica supposed was supposed a sincere and thankful look but all Silica could see what the look of an older sibling when a younger one would steal their thunder.

"Thank you!" Silica stated all the more enthusiastically. Combat hostility with smiles right? Well that's her plan at least and it seemed like it was somewhat working, Rosalia was annoyed at her and that was kind of Silica's plan. Ticking off Rosalia enough Rosalia may just want to kill her and that was fine with Silica, in fact she invited that thinking from Rosalia.

"How did you do that?" One of the otaku's asked but it might as well have been both of them asking judging by the look on the other's face. Out of the corner of her eye, Silica say Rosalia roll her eyes. That told one thing important about these players were not very likely to be a part of Rosalia's guild and that made Silica feel a lot better. Despite only calling by otaku's in her head rather than their actual names she liked them rather a lot and would prefer if the only prison they were in was the game.

"That was nothing, just using the momentum of the strike against it." Silica smiled and laughed as she said it.

"That's some skill that you would find on the front lines." The leader stated as he smiled and walked over to them, he had kill the other troll. Silica didn't know what to think of him to be perfectly honest as he really didn't seem like the type who would kill and steal but it's not like he had any defining characteristics that would suggest otherwise. There was no falsehood in his smile so that gave Silica some hope but she couldn't be entirely sure. "You were stunning." He stated as he ruffled her hair which gave him kind of a distant older brother kind of feel. At least that's something that her brother would do.

"Thanks." Silica stated. It didn't have the upbeat enthusiasm that she had shown to Rosalia but it was ten times better. From Silica's point of view it felt as though she was oozing out sincerity like no this was her first time ever doing so.

The leader motioned for everyone to continue on, occasionally running across more trolls and other monsters inside of dense forest that they were in. This would be the perfect place to ambush some and kill someone and Silica had the faintest idea that Rosalia already knew that. It felt as though Rosalia knew the forest by memory as if she had spent hours upon hours inside the forest. Silica thought back to the guild that had died by Titan's Hand, the Silver Flags, they had died on this floor hadn't they. Maybe, Silica could remember but she would have to keep her wits about her, there was no why she would let her party die maybe except for Rosalia, she wasn't really apart of the party.

"Do you two know each other from real life?" Silica asked as she walked next to the two otakus.

"Brothers from another mother." One stated while the other hand an entirely different answer yet just as touching. "World's best wingman." They both laughed

"Have either of you even kissed a girl?" Silica asked, laughing all the same. They both looked at each other of a moment before both of them got two sinister grins on both of their faces. "If you kiss me I'm punching you twelve times." Silica stated and both of the grins disappeared.

"Is that worth it?" One asked the other.

"I don't know." The other one responded.

"Seventeen times then." Silica stated with a look that said try me.

"Not worth it." One said as he shook his head from left to right. "Not at all." the one looked slightly downcast. Then both of them start to laugh until it had been nearly a minute before they could gain control of them. It was the sincerest laugh that she had heard even in her time outside of Aincrad, she loved it.

XXXX

Nothing like two otakus

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next one will be up in a few

Have a great day

-Kirk


	193. Prepare

January 29, 2023

-Kirito and Silica-

"Nice Job." Kirito stated as he closed his menu and looked towards Silica, who was smiling, and very much proud of herself.

"What did Argo say?" Silica asked as her smile went away and her face turned into a serious look. It was not something that Kirito had really ever seen on her face but he couldn't say that it suit her badly as it really didn't. Her face did farm a serious look excellently yet it was a far cry away from her usual cheery persona.

"Titan's hand is going to be on floor forty two tomorrow, they also have no known targets or anyone that they have scouted out to attack, except for you of course." Kirito stated with a grin on his face. The grin wasn't of happiness more like appreciation, Silica was incredible.

"How does she know?" Silica asked, she knew that it was from Argo, after all that really was the most significant thing that he brought to the table. His close connection to Argo was unrivalled by anyone in Aincrad and thus even if she did mess around and tease her work was faster for him than anyone.

"A guild like Titan's Hand needs a lot of connections to stay in loop even if they have a green member among them, Rosalia was obvious a scout, Argo found the person giving them information and blackmailed him. From what Argo said it was quite easy, all she had to do was promise him one thing and he spilled everything. Quite a skittish and scared fellow he gave in before Argo even started to ask questions." Kirito stated as once again a grin of appreciation found it's mark on his face.

"What did she promise him?" Silica asked curtly.

"A get out of jail free card, he won't be going to jail." Kirito stated with some disgust on his tongue. Silica had the same look plastered on her face, maybe even more so than what Kirito had. "We couldn't put him in jail anyways, it was created to hold orange players not green. You know that." Kirito said.

"They couldn't have found a better system, How hard would be to trap a green player?" Silica asked rhetorically as she leaned back in her chair with a great sigh.

"A lot harder than it would seem, it took them a lot longer than it should have anyways, just be glad that we have one now." Kirito stated with an air of surprisingly finality that somehow manage to shut up Silica for a couple of seconds.

"How is it her choice to decide that he gets to survive, there's no way that she knows everything that he had done. He could've killed four people and she wouldn't know any better. How does she know that he won't just go running off to another guild after this one falls." Silica stated with quite a bit of bite to her words. Somewhere she had picked up an intense hatred of the player killers it was on parallel to the people that hated himself.

"It doesn't matter if she knows or not, she trusts that he won't or she wouldn't have let him go off. Besides she's tracking him now and she knows what to expect this time. I trust Argo more than anything in this world, I trust her with my life, she is more loyal than anything. When she does something I support he like no other because no matter what I know one thing, Argo's the best there is, she doesn't make mistakes and she knows what she's doing." Kirito stated with the same air of finality but this time Silica showed her usual fiery self.

"If she's the best then why hasn't she found Laughing Coffin." Silica stated with pain written across her face.

"She has no answer for that question other than she is trying, she has no clue how to go about it without them knowing, she doesn't know how to get into Laughing Coffin's circle of information. Trust me, more people than you have asked, and that's the response that she always gives." Kirito said with a look that basically said try me.

"So we're moving on to phase two." Silica stated as she sighed in defeat. Kirito had put up a front that stopped Silica's argument.

"Yeah, this one should be easier than what you had to do before." Kirito said as he opened up his menu and started to navigate it. After a while found where exactly his notes had been hidden in his menu as there was quite a ton of randomness in it.

"What do I have to do?" Silica asked as she sat up and looked at Kirito with all of her attention. Kirito did have to give her props. While she might not be the most polite or focused of players, Silica has her moments and her moments had far better focus than anything Kirito had ever seen.

"Well," Kirito stalled for time as her searched for an item in his ever expanding inventory. "This is the dungeon you'll be going to." Kirito stated as he pushed a map of the dungeon towards her. This was what Kirito had been doing while Silica deceived Rosalia. The only dungeons that were usually ever mapped out were the dungeons that housed the floor or field boss for that floor. A dungeon like this one served little purpose to the front lines and thus it was never mapped out.

"You did this?" Silica asked as she took the map laid it down on the table and start to examine every little part of it.

"Yes, that is a complete map of one of the floor forty two dungeons, down to the unmovable rocks and logs." Kirito stated. It had been a pain to draw it out and with some help he had been able to do it a little under two days of focus.

"It's amazing, I had no idea you were one for cartography." Silica laughed as she examined Kirito's handy work.

"Not at all, but we needed something like this, this dungeon isn't exactly the easiest to navigate. It has no paths to speak of, it's one great big forest with no landmarks what so ever. The perfect place to kill a player don't you think?" Kirito asked as he looked over the map once more. He had already memorized the forest from his extended stay inside of it, he knew all the best hiding spots and the easiest way to make it out from almost everywhere in the dungeon. If he had anything to say he wasn't going to let them fail this mission, if it was in his control they would succeed.

"Where's the rendezvous point?" Silica asked as she placed the map down in the table in between them. Kirito pointed to a fairly secluded part of the dungeon, at least for this forest's standards. "And you'll be hidden somewhere nearby?" Silica asked as she looked up after a couple of moments of looking over their rendezvous point, it was fairly deep in the forest, almost near the center of the dungeon.

"Yes and then we'll surround them and send them through the teleporter, after we get Rosalia to attack us that is." Kirito stated as he folded up the map and handed it to Silica. "Just get the way to the rendezvous point memorized that's all you need." Kirito stated and Silica nodded in agreement.

"I inform the leader of Silver Flags that we almost have them captured but I refrained from telling him anything else. I didn't want to risk him showing up at the mission. I could tell he was relieved to find out that his guild was finally being avenged." Silica stated.

"That's good." Kirito stated as he stood up and walked towards Silica's side of the table. "Good Luck." Kirito stated as he outstretched his hand towards Silica.

"You'll need it more than I do." Silica stated as she shook Kirito's hand with a devilish grin of her face. "See ya tomorrow." Silica said after she turned around and started to walked away.

XXXX

Ready for it to begin

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapters will be up a week

Have a wonderful week

-Kirk


	194. Prehend

January 30, 2024

-Silica-

How long is this going to take?

That question kept running through Silica's mind as she continued to walk deeper and deeper into the forest dungeon. While she knew exactly where she was at, Silica had no clue how long she had been walking for, it felt as though she had been walking for days. That can't be true as if she truly had been walking for days, she would be more worried about sleep rather than keeping her stride unhurried. Yeah, she was just a bundle of nerves that's all, right? No reason to be afraid here.

How long was it going to be until Kirito showed up?

Well in reality, Silica was sure that Kirito was trailing the players who were trailing her, as she could tell that there was at least five or so behind her. So why couldn't Kirito just pop out, say magikazam, and send them all to prison. Probably because Kirito would never say magikazam. Silica ran her hand through her hair as she thought her current situation. While making a gesture that would look probably extremely weird to anyone behind her, Silica vowed that she would make Kirito say magikazam if it was the last thing she did. Then she would record it and show it to Sinon for the laughs.

Silica snuck a peak behind and saw a glimpse of red. It was Rosalia. For the time that she had spent with that group of players Silica could say one thing. The camaraderie between them was superb. That was true except for one outlier, and that was Rosalia. She was distant and cold except when she wanted to get to know something, then she was unnaturally walm. It was quite jarring at some times. Rosalia was just there to scout out potential missions not anything else, and Silica hated her for it. She used other people for her personal gain and that was it, nothing more could disgust Silica more than that.

However, what she had just seen was good, the Titan's Hand had only one green player as she was her so Silica could bet that the rest of the members were her to cash in on the items that Silica had on her. Silica had successfully baited the entire guild to follow her into a trap. That made her feel even better than she usually did. Now all that was left was to get Rosalia to turn her marker orange and then send them all to jail, seems easy enough, hopefully. Silica bit her tongue in anticipation and continued to walk on, they were nearing in to the rendezvous point.

Taking out the fancy dagger that Kirito had given her, Silica brandished it in such a way that the players behind her would be enticed even more and that's all she need. Keeping them on her until she stopped walking was all she needed to do and as of right now it was going easy enough. Not a single one of their players had broken away from what Silica could hear from behind her, the last thing they needed was for Silica to get surrounded. They were going to surround them, not the other way around.

Looking at her surroundings, Silica noticed that they were nearly at the place. In order to stop herself from getting to anxious, Silica clenched her left fist enough that if she was in the real world she would've drawn blood with her nails. However, her right hand showed no sign of her emotions as it laid calmly by her side, with the dagger lying simple in its grasp. She wouldn't let the mission go airy just because of her emotions. She wouldn't allow it. She couldn't allow it. Silica looked straight ahead and calmed herself for what was to come.

"Hello, how's it going." It was Kirito. He was doing his mocking voice to try and entice Rosalia to attack him. "It's a nice day out, don't you think, it's a shame to let a day like this go to waste. I mean if it was up to me I would be lying in the grass, but I guess killing a little girl wouldn't be wasting it either, am I right?" Kirito asked a rhetorical question.

From the dispersed talking throughout the group of player killers, Silica could tell that Kirito was going to have a lot of fun winding them was basically Kirito's job now, just to get all of them to realise that they can't damage him while he could kill each every one of them simply and without any real effort. In doing that, Kirito would make it so Rosalia would attack him and lend herself a spot in jail that she would otherwise be able to escape from. The entire plan revolved around that coming to pass and Kirito was about to execute it.

"And who are you to stop us?" Rosalia asked as she smirked something near dangerous. This seemed a lot more on place with her face than any of the faked and creepy smiles she had used back when they were in a party together. "Last time I checked, it was eight of us versus you two, there's no way you can beat us." Rosalia stated confidently as the rest of the Titan's Hand guild came into view. Their plan had worked.

"No one really." Kirito stated as if it really didn't matter and he had no care in the world.

"Then you wouldn't care if we kill you.' Rosalia smirked as the players around her ready their weapons.

"I invite it actually. You know what, I'll take you all on with just my fists. All eight of you. I'll take you all on." Kirito stated as opened his menu and put his sword away while it was still in its sheath. He also put away his coat. "Ready." Kirito stated as stood nonchalantly waiting for all of them to attack him.

"Attack him!" Rosalia yelled obviously pissed off. Maybe pissed off enough to not notice how much of an idiot she was.

"Are you sure?" One of the players next to her asked.

"Attack him!" Rosalisa reiterated louder than last time.

None of the players seemed inclined to actually go against Rosalia so all them, although they did it half-heartedly, ran at Kirito. And Kirito laughed as they did this and bent his knees, obviously prepared for them all to come at him and not scared in the least. In fact the players rushing at him seemed more scared than Kirito was. And this was shown to be true by the next following sequence of events as one player was basically laughing at all of the others while they were increasingly growing more tired. Kirito weaved in and out of all of their attacks not a single attack had been able to touch him.

"Maybe if there was eight people attacking me you would be able to hit me, or are you too afraid." Kirito said in a mock baby voice as he dodged four strikes coming at him at once. This immediately angered Rosalia and she charged at Kirito with her Spear raised and struck him on the side. Silica heard a grunt of pain but that was it and Kirito had grabbed Rosalia's spear and took it straight out of her grasp. "Ouch. Kirito said as he made all of the other players back off him just by frighten them with Rosalia's spear.

"Thank you." Kirito stated as he open his menu a took out a large teleportation. "I was wrong about you, I thought you would at least be somewhat smart, but it turns out you're actually pretty dumb." Kirito stated as he placed the teleportation crystal on the ground. "This will teleport all of you to the jail on floor one, where you'll live out the rest of your days in aincrad." Kirito stated as he stood up.

"You all killed four players in a guild called the Silver Flags, their leader, the only one you didn't kill asked us to enact his revenge but not to kill you. He wanted us to send you to jail, and that is what we shall do. Good Bye Rosalia." Silica said as she activated the the teleportation crystal and sent them away to jail.

XXXX

Well that was fun

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter will be out in a few

Have a great day

-Kirk


	195. Plicature

January 30, 2024

-Kirito and Silica-

"You were excellent." Kirito stated as he raised his up into the air. "To Silica." Kirito said jokingly as he raise his glass then took a long drink. They were the only ones celebrating and to this action a couple of players looked at Kirito questioningly.

"Yes, too me." Silica shouted as she jumped up into a standing position from her seat and drank to herself. To this the players who had been looking at them also raised a glass to her name, although with a lot less enthusiasm.

"What I didn't do anything." Kirito stated as feigned being hurt. To make it even more of a spectacle he pretend as though he had been shot in the chest and fell back further into his seat as his empty glass feel to the table. This earn scattered laughs throughout the bar and a smile off of Silica face as she gently placed her glass on the table and sat down.

"Yeah you did do something." Silica stated as she raised her glass and stood up once more and walked around the bar. "You all know who this boy is here?" Silica asked as she continued to pace around the bar. Most of the players in the bar made a murmur of yes or a nod of the head. "This here is The Black Swordsman, or how I like to call him, Idiot Kirito, who's also an ass." Silica laughed as she made her way back to her seat and fell into it. All of the players laughed.

"I hate you." Kirito sighed as picked his cup up and put on the table correctly. The visage of a smile was visible on his face.

"Don't worry, you have the same reaction that Sinon had when we first met. And look where we are at right now, best of friends. I'll grow on you too. And then you'll be under my control." Silica stated as she pointed at Kirito and laughed. "I like you." Silica stated as she laughed and clapped to seemingly nothingness. "Sinon usual tries to rebuttal everything I say while you more seem completely clueless, And I have to say, this is a lot more entertaining." Silica laughed.

"I'm done here." Kirito stated as he stood up and paid for all of the drinks he bought. Kirito had one hundred percent though he could get away with standing up and leaving the bar without any repercussions. He was wrong. So very wrong.  
"Look here everyone, The Black Swordsman been defeated by a little girl." Silica stated as she pointed at Kirito. "Everyone clap for my victory!" Silica stated as she jumped up with both of her hands in the air while her legs were spread out like she was doing some sort of pose. All of the players in the bar, even the ones who had just entered or the ones who were contemplating leaving joined in.

Kirito's footsteps slowly got slower and slower until he stopped just before the door. Whilisted grinding his teeth against his moving tongue, Kirito turned around and walked back to his seat. This felt like the longest walk he had ever had to make, each step was antagonizing, as if his feet were covered in weights making each of his steps as slow as snails. Combined with the fact that many of his fellow front line members were staring at him didn't help, it was also though each one of their stares pushed against his chest. Then finally he found the seat across from Silica and eased himself away from the weights and stares into something most certainly worse.

Looking at him was now just one face and if he could turn back time and analyse each and every face that had been staring at him just moments prior he would have because he wouldn't have had the chance to analyse the look of pure enjoyment on Silica's face. First of all, Kirito didn't know how Silica did it but her smile of well what Kirito saw was malice and managed to stretch across her whole entire face. Secondly, her eyes literal made Kirito shiver. He had faced the hardest boss's in Aincrad and yet his ally was the first to make him do so. Combined, it made Kirito feel as though he had made a terrible mistake.

"Kirito folds." Silica said sweetly and plainly and yet this made Kirito's mind race. However, Kirito did have one thought that still rained true.

"I hate you." Kirito stated curtly and with just as much resolved, maybe even more than he had before.

"That's more like it." Silica stated smiling as she pointed at Kirito with a devilish grin upon her face. Silica stood up from her seat and ruffled Kirito's hair then plopped herself back down into her seat. "Come on Kirito, you have to admit that everything was thanks to me, am I right?" Silica asked as she smiled the most sincere smile ever. If Kirito didn't know her so well then Kirito would've fallen for it but nevertheless Kirito had grown to know the short girl in front of him.

"So that's what this was about then." Kirito stated as he sighed into his hands. Silica was absolutely ridiculous, making this whole entire epic spectacle with so much work on her end yet, it was for something so easy, so trivial such as recognition for something that Kirito had already given her recognition for. The girl sitting across from him was certainly something else entirely.

"It was all thanks to you." Kirito stated as he raised an imaginary glass.

"Well you at least have to have a glass in your hand to do it, come on it doesn't even need to be full, just fake it." Silica stated as she pushed her now empty glass into Kirito's closed hands, that basically were forced open thanks to Silica's glass.

"To Silica, I couldn't have done without you." Kirito stated as he raised his glass and took an imaginary sip. A couple scattered laughs came from the players that were still watching them.

"No No, you are doing it wrong, you have to mean it." Silica stated as acting out what Kirito could only assume to be the mean it part. "Let me show you." Silica said as she took her glass back and stood up. "To Silica, our lord and savior." Silica stated as she shoved the glass out in front of her, soo much so that he arm was extend out all the way then brought it back to take the most exaggerated fake drink of anything ever. She got applause rather than the muffled laughter that Kirito had gotten. "Now that is how you give a toast to someone Kirito, so let's see if you can follow the example given by the get me." Silica stated as she gave the glass back to Kirito.

Kirito looked at the glass for far longer than he had ever done before. Far longer than any sober person should do before opening his mouth. "No." Kirito stated curtly as he left the glass at the spot where Silica had placed it.

"How dare you deny the great Silica, who do you think you are, justice." Silica stated, ending her final words with two pounds on the table that uncannily sounded like gavels.

"You are have way too much fun with this aren't you?" Kirito asked.

"You know I am." Silica stated with probably the first genuine smile of the night.

"I hate you." Kirito sighed

"And that's why I'm your friend." Silica stated with a smile as she acted as though she was finishing Kirito's sentence. They both laughed.

XXXX

Silica is awesome

Hope you all think so too

Next chapter(s) will be up in a week

See you all then

-Kirk


	196. Pale

February 1, 2024

-Tsubaki and Ran-

"Ready for this." Tsubaki said with a hint of excitement, or rather blatant excitement. Even if she had tried to find it, she would have been unsuccessful, that's how excited she was.

"What are you going to show me?" Ran asked as she looked at Tsubaki hesitantly. The look on Tsubaki's face was concerning to Ran as it was a look of someone about to test something. And that's not something Ran thought was good to combine with Tsubaki's thirst for adventure.

"You'll just have wait and see." Tsubaki stated with a devilish grin on her face. And now Ran definitely didn't feel safe, that was saying something as she had spent the last year of her life inside a death game.

"Don't kill yourself." Ran stated curtly as she braced herself for what Tsubaki was planning on doing. It was most likely going to spectacular and while being somewhat dangerous. Tsubaki always had the problem with not really having a line between what was safe and what wasn't. It had been that way since she had first entered the game.

"But what's an adventure without a chance to kill yourself." Tsubaki stated as the purple blob on her left arm started to move up her arm. "You ready for this." Tsubaki stated with a devilishly wicked grin on her face.

"Charlotte, WINGS!" Tsubaki shouted it as loud as she possibly could. On que, without a second of delay, huge purple wings grew out of her back and stretched themselves out. They were incredible, no other words could explain it, the wings were just simply breathtaking. If they had been able to change their color they would have been the color of fire red as the colors of most of the dragons in Aincrad had been. After all Tsubaki had never seen any other wings as magnificent as dragon's wings anywhere before.

"They look amazing." Ran said as she walked towards Tsubaki and touched Charlotte, or rather the purple wings that seemingly looked attached to Tsubaki's back. They felt as though they were an extension of Tsubaki's body in a way, they felt human almost yet at the same time… they were purple. If it wasn't for that fact they would've been perfect.

"Swing your sword at me." Tsubaki stated as she raised both of the wings up to cover most of her body. Her shapeshifting pet, Charlotte can basically do anything that Tsubaki's commands her or it, she hadn't asked Tsubaki the gender nor did she want to. Tsubaki could tell Charlotte what to do without even speaking, to Tsubaki, Charlotte was an extension of herself.

"We talked about this, tell me the reason first before I attack you with my weapons." Ran exclaimed as she said it in a cross between a matter-of-fact tone and a stop that one. Ran replied with a rather rude hand gesture.

"Charlotte's invinceable, take a swing." Tsubaki said as if it was nothing but Ran felt as though it held a lot more meaning than Tsubaki had given it.

"You sure?" Ran questioned Tsubaki as she pulled her short sword out of her sheath and placed the blade on her shoulder, prepared to strike at a moment's notice. All was she waiting for was for something of a confirmation from Tsubaki.

"Definitely, I've already tested it many of times." Tsubaki stated without thought as Ran thought as if the wings somewhat shied away yet remained firm all the same. This made Ran hesitate for a second but she knew that Tsubaki wouldn't rest until Ran tested it out.

"Alright." Ran stated with more a hesitant tone to her voice than she had usually had. Wielding her short sword with one hand, Ran swung at the wings without any of the usually force that she put into her strikes. This translated into a weak attack bouncing off of the purple wings like it was a toothpick being flicked at the wall. It was laughable.

"Come on, put your back into, I know you aren't." Tsubaki laughed from inside her cocoon of purple. Well if there was thing that she could count on, was Tsubaki seeing right through her, even if she couldn't see. This made Ran smile as she prepared one of her new favorite attacks. It was five attacks in rapid succession, all linear attacks and all as fast as anything. While one may not have enough depth to kill your target, two or three would definitely get the job finished. Ran sent all five linears at Tsubaki and the only thing she succeeded in was pushing Tsubaki back a couple of paces.

"That's impressive, but I could still beat you in a fight." Ran stated as ran her hand down her sword as if she was wiping it off. After inspecting that it was somewhat near clean, Ran sheathed her sword at her side.

"You wish." Tsubaki laughed as she walked over to Tsubaki and put her arm around her. The wings mimicked the actions of her arms. It was a little bit humorous to see someone with as small a stature as Tsubaki have to giant wings mimicking her movements. Though that was Ran talking, someone who had manage to be even smaller than Tsubaki who was only 140 centimeters tall.

"Like your tricks could ever overpower my sword, this sword is absolute, it will not fail." Ran stated as she unsheathed her sword and raised it up as if it was under a light. They both looked at the sword for a couple of moments before Tsubaki laughed. Ran then shot a look of annoyance at Tsubaki.

"You're an idiot." Tsubaki stated curtly and without a single bit of bluntness soften for Ran's feelings. Rolling her eyes, Ran's sword quickly and seamlessly moved to rest on Tsubaki's neck.

"And you're dead." Ran stated as she moved her sword away from Tsubaki's neck. To this, Tsubaki mirrored the eye roll that Ran had given her earlier as the wings on her back stretched out to their maximum. It was easily longer than Tsubaki's height times two.

"Guess what they can do." Tsubaki stated as the wings on her back stretched themselves out, coiled back again, and continued to repeat itself. The look on Tsubaki face was a look of pure happiness and anticipation. If she was ever going to die, that was the look that would highlight it the most. With that look on her face, Tsubaki knelt down and placed her had on the ground. In an instant, Ran knew exactly what she was about do, and couldn't be more amazed that the game would allow it.

"You've got to be joking, there's no way that's possible." Ran stated as she felt the wind rustle her short hair. There was no way in the world a VRMMO could handle something as innovative as that. There was no way.

"You better believe it." Tsubaki said as she pushed of from the ground with her one arm and both of her legs and caught the gust of wind that had just blown past them. Ran watched as Tsubaki took off in a silent ascent but it's presentation was anything other than that. There was only one way to put it, Tsubaki looked like an angel despite all of the color differences. It was graceful beyond grace. It went above and beyond everything Ran had seen before. While Tsubaki may exclaim over some of the sights they had seen this one truly magnificent in every way. It was a masterpiece.

The blues of the sky contrasted perfectly off of the dark purple of the wings while Tsubaki's light pink hair still made itself stand out while being able to camouflage itself against the violet wings. Tsubaki manage to stay in the sky with little effort, or at least it seemed that way. It was as if it was natural to her. The ascent used a lot less wing flaps then Ran would've thought it would while to maintain her height didn't take much, if any at all. It was plainly the most breathtaking thing ever, Ran could only imagine what Tsubaki was feeling all the way up there.

And then, even though it had only felt as though a couple of seconds had passed, Tsubaki seamlessly flew down to the ground. Even her landing was perfect, just like everything else that had happened. Ran watched as the two wings attached to Tsubaki's back unceremoniously disappeared without even a single blue shard to be left in it's wake.

"That was amazing." Ran stated awe struck at what had just occurred.

"You haven't seen anything yet." Tsubaki stated with a smile as she turned to face Ran. "I have soo much prepared." Her devilish grin was back.

XXXX

Hope you a all enjoyed this chapter

Into the sky

Next chapter will be up in a week

Have a great day

-Kirk


	197. Pastel

February 4, 2024

-Ran and Tsubaki-

"Hey Ran can you give me a lore drop." Tsubaki stated as she looked up towards the sky or rather in the direction of the sky. Her neck craned upwards, at it's limit to see all off what was in front of them.

"Well this, I believe is something close to what the Lighthouse of Alexandria looked like." Ran said as she walked up to the base of the giant building and examine what it was made out of. "These are solid, it's support is incredibly stable, probably a lot more than the real one was." Ran stated as she felt the wall a bit. Then she punched it and instantly regretted it. Her hand hurt, a lot, but she did find out important, or maybe not that important fact. The bricks were in fact stolid. "The original one was not exactly the most sturdy thing if you know what I mean. It was knocked down by an earthquake." Ran stated as she back away from the lighthouse.

"Alexandria, where would that be?" Tsubaki asked as she came up behind Ran. If Ran had not been soo accustomed to her voice she would've jumped but after spending a year together her voice was the one that she knew the most. "I never heard of a place called Alexandria." Tsubaki stated as Ran turned around to face her.

"I think it's in Egypt somewhere, I don't know if it is still there but I can tell you for certain that the last of this monument was disposed of a long time ago, you won't be seeing this one any time soon." Ran stated as she once again turned to look at the lighthouse before them. If Kayaba had truly made this game on his own then who did he add things like this into the world. It was literally a masterpiece.

"Was this one of the seven things that the other was in." Tsubaki asked as she looked up towards. The lighthouse with admiration and angst written across it. Unbenounced to either of them, Tsubaki's purple arm slowly turned back into it's usual pale color. The color that was way too pale in comparison to even Ran's skin, which was several tones darker than her own

"This is one of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World." Ran said as she looked up towards the sky. It was day time and yet Ran couldn't way for the sky to darken. Hell even looking at it during the sunset it would look amazing. She couldn't wait until she was out at night to if it had a light attached to the top that could broadcast light for kilometers and kilometers around in the the sea with only bridges of land to connect in between. If this sight was anything then what is was at night would be something else entirely, something else better.

"You ready to see something amazing." Tsubaki said with in an of mysteriousness that was obviously added in for effect. But Ran almost immediately knew what she was about to do and wasn't going to have any part of it. However, she was too late to get away from her friend and end up getting caught within her grasps. "Come on, you'll like it." Tsubaki stated as she smiled. Ran knew she was smiling even if her head positioning prevented her from seeing Tsubaki's face.

"You sure!" Ran exclaimed as she hugged her best friend as if her life depended on it. That was probably because it actually did.

"But what's not to like about flying." Tsubaki stated with an air of extreme excitement as they flew up higher and higher. If Ran could have struggled so that Tsubaki would let her go she would have but tt seemed as though that wasn't going to happen nor did it seem safe from how high up they were. "Come Ran, it's no fun looking down, at least not yet. "Charlotte, circle it." Tsubaki yelled through the whistling of wind blowing past them.

Now that she was holding to Tsubaki for dear life while not exactly that she got enjoy that sight the was before her. It was something else and she could help but to thank Tsubaki or was going to. Ran would need to yelled at for kidnapping her and flying around, only holding her with her two hands. That was probably the safest way to do it, or at least that's what Ran was going to keep telling herself.

Thankfully, the sight it front of her was actively stopping her from thinking about her impending doom. They were both above the lighthouse now and Ran could see for a literal kilometer in every direction. She doubted that a plan in real life could compare to this virtual simulation, that was how good it was. Nothing could beat the feeling of failing with the addition of the breeze lifting her hair ever so slightly. If she hadn't been holding on to Tsubaki for dear life she would've stuck out both arms and legs and allow the current to take anywhere that it wanted, it just felt soo good.

"You're right, this is amazing!" Ran screamed the last part as they dipped into a dive against the lighthouse and came up just shy of being impaled by the ground.

"Told you." Tsubaki retorted as they made to gain back the altitude that they had lost in the drop. If the sight in front of her wasn't what it was, Ran may have respond to Tsubaki. As it stands however, talking would simply muddy the breathtaking sight in front of them

They both looked at the tall singular building that was protruding into the sky. It was much better than the sketches she had seen of it back in the real world. While nothing beats the real thing, this replica was unbeat compare to feeble drawings that she had seen. The lighthouse had a rectangular or square aspect to it, there was no curves to be seen of. That was with one exception, the top of the lighthouse was rounded, where the light would come from when night fell.

The top or observation point, from what it looked to Ran was sitting on top of an octangular pillar. This pillar was the sole support to anything above it and looked quite magnificent if Ran could say so herself. It was made up of entirely the same material but in such a way that it didn't feel as though it was just a really large sculpture, it felt like on huge lighthouse. To do this the stone that it was made out was separated into bricks with some type of material in between it. While this material seemed to have lost it's original color, the grey hues that it had were left behind.

This transitioned into a rectangular base that was lot more tall than it was wide in either direction. It was made up of the same materials as everything before it, however the fact that it was a different shape made it stand out from the other layers just as much as they did. At the base was a fort type things that was most likely there to protect the structure from any crashes waves. That didn't mean it got some other material though, it was made up of the same material as the rest of the structure, even in the real one that had fallen so many years ago just to piece for another building.

"Just imagine being alive when this thing was still standing." Ran stated as she looked at it with the same admiration that Tsubaki had.

"I would give anything to see this." Tsubaki stated with a note of sorrow near the end. They both landed on the ground and Ran turned to face her best friend. Her face was not in tune with her bright pink hair.

"Come on, we have something we have to get done." Ran stated as she held out her hand for Tsubaki to take.

XXXX

And we take to the sky

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapters will be up in a week

Have a wonderful day

-Kirk


	198. Plant

February 9, 2024

-Zack-

Today was the first day of the last. Everything was going to change, even if it didn't go according to plan. If didn't go to plan then all of his work would've been for nothing and wouldn't let that happen. He had, no, they had sacrificed soo much for him to get where he was today and everyone had been counting on him. To make right where he could and pay tribute to all those who had lost. While their lives may have been necessary that didn't make it right in the slightest. That was just a grim part of the world that they were in.

His hand couldn't stop shaking.

It was as if he was going through withdrawal once again, maybe he was or maybe it was something else. All he knew was that it needed to stop or everything he had worked so hard for might be undone. He would need to stop it soon, he needed, He Needed to. His mind was screaming out, telling his arm to stop and yet nothing changed in the least. Or maybe it had just gotten worst, Zack didn't know. One one thought was in his mind and that's all that mattered.

He needed to stop shaking, NOW!

Zack collapsed onto the ground and ran his hands over his face with such force that he could feel the skin of his hands roughly sliding across his face, pulling some of the skin along. His entire body was shaking now. Nothing could stop him from shaking it just felt as though it was a part of him, like it had always been there. The last time he had felt something like this he had been going through withdrawal and it wasn't something that he could shoulder on his own. Last time he had killed someone, someone that meant more than the world to him and he regretted it more than anything.

It had taken him months to stop himself constantly shaking. Every time he closed his eyes he closed his eyes, her face popped up right in front of him, smiling. Why he had been so weak to steep down to that level. If she was here right now she would help him out, without question. Even though she didn't have to be there she had always been helping him through even the toughest of times and did he repay her, he killed her. He deserved everything he had gotten from that murder, hell every single one that he had committed thus far. No justification would suffice no matter how many excuses he came up with. They were his fault and his entirely.

The only thing that kept him from going completely insane last time was Ran, and she wasn't here this time. Nor would he bring her into this. This was his fight and he needed to fight it on his own because that was the only way to fight it. When everyone around you is fighting for something that is completely opposite of what you're fighting against your job seems all the more heavy. Zack felt as though he was cracking under the pressure, both mentally and physically, it seemed as though he just couldn't handle it.

But if he couldn't handle it then what was all the work he had put in for?  
Nothing?

Or a lost cause?

Zack refused to believe that. No matter how hard it was he would soldier on. But no matter how many proclamations he had made in his head it didn't matter as he mind saw right through them. The empty words didn't so much as tickle the strong resolve of his shaking. Why was it soo strong? Was it because he was weak, that he couldn't that handle it, that he had bitten off more than he could chew? He would do something about it now. He would, he needed to. And now he will he going to stop himself in that moment. Taking out one of the concealed daggers he had hidden on his body since joining Laughing Coffin, Zack raised it up and felt it;s blade puncture through his skin.

Pain spread throughout his body and almost in that instant the the intense shaking stopped, only to be replaced by his arm seemingly being on fire. Or at least that was what his mind had been telling him because the pain was so fierce. Zack threw the knife away, he didn't exactly care where it had ended up nor did he pay much attention to it. Both of his squeezed where he had stabbed himself. It had been awhile since he had felt physical pain such as this and it didn't feel good. This felt as though someone had taken out his throat and dragged him along with it, Zack closed his eyes only to be opened just a second later to a sound that was so familiar to him.

Hell, it was familiar to anyone in Aincrad, it was the sound of his dagger hitting the ground a break up on impact. Shards of blue were left in it's wake and Zack stood up. One hand was still over his right arm but he knelt down to examine the area at which his blade had shatter at.

Nothing was different from anywhere, it may actually been smoother than most surfaces yet his dagger had still broken from it. Was that how long he had that on his person? How long had he been using it, it must've been at least for some time. It must've been since he joined Laughing Coffin which it had been a long time since that had happened. Too long, he had forgotten what It felt like not to be a killer. But he was one he would always be one, it was a part of his life, a part he had subjected himself to. Even in the real world he would carry that weight with him across everything he did because he needed to. It was the least he could for them was remember each one until he died.

Zack stood up, pain still spewing out of his arm like no tomorrow, but he didn't feel it not anymore. Like the fact that the wound had already heal in a matter of seconds his pain while not gone had evaded his mind and his sense of awareness. That wasn't what hurt him the most, it was his inevitable goal that he had set himself to achieve, something near impossible, yet it was within his grasps. He was closer than all those fools on the front line because he had risked everything to go get this far. Now was the crossroads, and the time to make his life changing decision was finally time to finish.

Taking his spear off the back, he stabbed it into the cold rock that he was on, it was nearly unbreakable but unlike walls in the town this wasn't an immortal object, just a nearly indestructible one. He had spent nearly three months searching after something like this and he found it, the perfect place to leave a message, untraced. After all this time he had found a place in the environment to leave a message, to start the trail. With much effort and strength put into it he craved three sets of numbers.

A floor number along with both the X and Y coordinate, all in a jumbled order so that anyone that had found it, then they wouldn't know what to do with it. And that's where the second part of the plan came in. An anonymous note, passed through many hands after his that gave these coordinates and the order at which the numbers came.

This would make it so that the trail would be near impossible to trace back to him and that's what he needed, there would be enough evidence on him after he carried out the next phase of his plans.

XXXX  
Everyone's favorite red player, or at least mine

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter will be out in a few

Have a wonderful day

-Kirk


	199. Pleasure

February 14, 2024

-Kirito and Asuna-

"You know what today is?" Asuna asked as she fiddled with in her lap. It was hard not to look down at her fingers but she resisted it and kept on looking at Kirito. The look on Kirito's face was a look of pensive thought, he was thinking really hard about what she had asked. He wasn't going to get it, so he didn't know how much this meant to her. While her insides were crestfallen she kept her faces cheerfully patient, she still had some hope.

"Your Birthday." Kirito stated fairly confident. It wasn't the confidence that he swung his sword along with but he could use that confidence to pass just about any test. Except for her's, she knew him way to well for that to slide.

"Nope." Asuna said as her insides dropped a little bit. Come on Kirito, you got this! Asuna had hope beyond hope that Kirito knew what today was. Even if he was more clueless than anything he should know what this day is.

"I don't know." And faith has been lost! How could Kirito not know what this day was? A day that was so important to Asuna, it was more important than anything else had been. That included the advance courses that she had spent days and days acing. She thought about telling him today. "What was it Asuna?" Kirito asked.

And somehow with his question that she certainly would've been slightly ticked of that he asked, he had gained back all of the faith that he had lost, or at least some of it. His voice was caring and gentle yet somehow had a note of sorrow in it. For some reason he was sorry about forgetting about whatever Asuna asked. And there wasn't even a something he was just sorry that he didn't know. He was just a great guy.

"Nevermind." Asuna smiled, she was content with everything staying as it was right. Just her and Kirito always going out, that would be fine, right? Well she would be content with it now as Kirito made her life soo much better just by being there. Or at least that's what she thought would be the case, but she could tell that her heart was saying otherwise. It was screaming out to her, as if wanted the exact opposite.

"You sure?" Kirito said with a sweet smile at Asuna. This made her bite her lip. More than anything she wanted to spill everything to him, if she did then she could be with him, right? What if she rejected him, what then, would she be able to continue on, knowing that she had gotten rejected. Would they still be friends afterwards? All of these fears collided onto her in single moment and she didn't know what to do. She nodded. She didn't decide on doing that but her body acted on it's own. Afterwards Asuna just sat in silence hoping beyond hope that Kirito would break the silence, and he did.

"Ohhh, food!" Kirito stated as his faced turned into more of a child face than anything. It was as sif he had just enter a candy store and his parents said go wild. That was how wide Kirito's face was at the sight of the food. This made Asuna let out of girlish giggle, he really was a kid. Asuna watched as his sandwich was placed in front of him while she got a stew. What was more kiddish than sandwich?

Kirito barely made it through thanking that he got food before his teeth sank in the sandwich. From must boys she had meet in her life, including her brother didn't really like anything on their sandwich while Kirito wanted as much as possible on his sandwich. According to Kirito, the more the better. He really was a kid wasn't he. Yet somehow he was able to remain serious in every situation that called it while any situation that his childhood innocence shined.

"You okay?" This was more off muffled question if anything. Kirito hadn't exactly remember his table manners. This made Kirito blush at his forgetfulness as he gulped down the considerable amount of food in his mouth. "You okay?" Asuna didn't respond the first time, rathe laughed at Kirito, so asked once more. "You're not eating." Kirito stated.

"I'm fine." Asuna stated with a girlish tone to her voice. With Kirito staring at her, Asuna took her chopsticks and plopped a piece of pork in her mouth as if to say, see. This made Kirito smile as he took another bite of sandwich. Asuna smiled back started to eat more of her stew, she really did like her some stew. "Would you like to try some?" Asuna asked as she tilted the bowl towards Kirito.

"Sure." Kirito said he picked up his chopsticks and got some bit of everything and taking it to his mouth. Asuna knew that Kirito wouldn't reject it as not only was he a nice person that was likely not reject anything, he loved food. And from the look on his face, Asuna could tell that he rather enjoyed the stew that Asuna had gotten. "This is really good." Kirito said almost all of the food was out of his mouth. Apparently he couldn't restrain himself from speaking for that much time.

Asuna laughed. "Did you get taught not to talk with your mouth open?" Asuna asked as she laughed at Kirito bit. Almost instantaneously he covered his mouth and said sorry with a sort of downcast look on his face. Asuna would rather see a smile on his face. "Don't worry I can teach you." Asuna teased him as she plopped another bite of stew into her mouth. If he thought this was good then maybe she should cook for him, she could no doubt make something better. Or maybe she should wait until she maxed out her cooking skill, then she could surprise him with an amazing meal, maybe then she could confess to him.

"I could talk without food in my mouth." Kirito stated as feigned being hurt. Asuna giggled, he probably could talk without food in his mouth, but he was bad whenever he had food in front of him. Maybe he just simply loved food too much. That was probably it, now that Asuna thought about it a little bit. Asuna smiled at Kirito and he smiled back, she loved being with him.

"AHHHHHH." A scream came from outside. It was male but it was quite high pitched, kinda like Kirito's voice. She would never tell him she had thought that, he would die from embarrassment. But now wasn't the time for thoughts such as those, there was someone outside that was obviously distress. As a part of the front lines it was her duty to make sure that the citizens of Aincrad were safe.

From the look on Kirito's face they had gotten to the same conclusion. Asuna knew that Kirito was at that conclusion, his look only confirmed it. The was no way Kirito would stand by while someone else was distress. He didn't care about himself he cared about everyone and he would take on everything by himself, but he didn't have too, Asuna would help, she would always help him.

Asuna jumped up a ran out of the restaurant to see what the scream had came from. Following not to far would be Kirito as he most likely left the money for their meal on the table. Even if he didn't know what today was he a true gentlemen, he always paid. And when Asuna walked outside she saw something she never thought she would see inside the safe zones

There was a player wearing a hood absolutely beating the hell out of another player, the male. It seemed as though it was some sort of grudge but from what Asuna could tell the male player didn't stand a chance.

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You ready for the next episode

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter will be out in a week

Have a great week

-Kirk


	200. Reprisal

February 14, 2024

-Griselda-

"I've been waiting for this for forever." Griselda whispered into the ear of the man in front of her. Then grin on her face was wicked as ever yet concealed by by a hood over her head. The only player that was close enough to see her smile was the one who she had whispered to and from the looks of things, he most definitely didn't want to talk to her.

Almost upon her first word he tensed up, it was like he knew her voice from heart, nay from memory and never thought he was going to hear to it again. However, he had underestimated her greatly, she was back and even stronger than he had ever imagined. Griselda speculated that it was his nightmares brought to life. No, it was his nightmares on steroids as they were actually happening, and probably not where he had wanted them to either. On purpose, Griselda had chosen the middle of one of the bustling market to step up to him. And now she would started the first phase of her revenge.

"Hello Grimlock." Griselda said sweetly into her husband's ears. It was barely audible but she knew that he had heard, she could tell that he had tensed up even more. This was going to be his retribution for his sins. Horrible price to pay for it. And Griselda was going to deliver in the most painful way possible.

Grimlock's body had completely froze, his breathing stop and he remained still right in front of her. This made Griselda smile even wider, she doubted that her face was anywhere near the kind face he had been used to, it was probably more akin to the one's that bread from his fears. Getting as close as she could get to his ear, she whispered one word. "Boo." Her voice was airy and she made she that he felt the breath come out of her mouth just to add to the effect.

This was reaction made her day. Grimlock's body instantly fell down to his knees and then took off in a sprint. It really seemed as though he was giving everything he had to get away from. That made Griselda laughed as she remembered the times when he gave it his all to get closer to her, ah how times had changed. However this time, it didn't seem as though his all was going to pan out into anything as he was dreadful slow, at least compared to her.

Griselda crack her back and neck and dipped into a take off position at insane speeds. Looking back she didn't know why she choose him as he was so pathetic, maybe he had just been able to hide it better in the real world. As she took off at him, Griselda laughed a little bit. Every single move he had down thus far she had predicted and now he was doing exactly what she had wanted him to do. Thanks to his frantic sprint he had gain a number of people watching him and if she was going to humiliate him she would need that.

Without even trying it, she had caught up to him in a matter of seconds. The training that she and Keita had gone through had brought her levels in a drastic amount. If she wanted to be on the front lines they couldn't refuse that privilege based on level anymore. Meanwhile her husband and seemingly fallen further than when she had last seen him.

Once she caught up to him she laid a kick square in the middle of his back making him crash into the ground. If he hadn't tried to have her killed maybe she would've felt some sympathy, but as it stands right now, he deserved it more than anything. Grimlock hit the ground with a deafening thud, if it had been the real world he would've broken a couple of ribs in that impact. If it had been out in a dungeon he would've lost a decent amount of health but as they were in the town the only thing that happened was he felt a tremendous amount of pain spread throughout his body.

There was bunch of scattered murmurs throughout crowd that had surrounded them as they all watched Griselda walk over to Grimlock. The only part of her face that was even somewhat visible was her wicked grin. No one even tried to stop her, they were too afraid. That was said, her strength wasn't all that impressive, she was just leagues better than this scaredy cat. Griselda laughed to herself as she knelt down to speak to Grimlock.

"You'll have to try harder than that if you want to run away from this one." Griselda laughed as she grabbed the collar of his shirt. "Now try again." With a tremendous amount of strength, she yanked him back onto his feet. She felt his collar choke the front of his neck as he flew through the air. It must've hurt. Griselda laughed once more, this time making it loud so that he could her laugh, it must've terrified him. Even though she was not touching him she could feel his heart pounding as he stood motionless, he was frozen in fear. "Come on now, we haven't got all day." With a push from Griselda he took off.

This time his speed as trying to be near respectful but it failed on some major accounts. The first one was the most obvious, his running wasn't paced at all, it was like a frantic child running away from a monster. It seemed as though everything he did was making her laugh. Maybe he should just let him run to live another day in fear. As delectable as that thought sounded, Griselda thought that what she had in mind was going to be a million times better.

Seeming as though she didn't have a care in the world, Griselda cracked her back, then her neck, and finally her fingers before she got into her take off position. After making sure that her hood wouldn't come flying off, Griselda took off after him once more. While he may have been a considerable amount faster than he was last time it was still nothing compared to herself. Instead of kicking him into the ground with both of her feet she got in front of him and used her jumping spinning hook kick to take him down to the ground in one fell background even more people were scared of her due to the advanced acrobatic maneuver she had just pulled off.

Her attack had happened in an instant, it was gone in the blink of an eye and all they would see was the after effects. However, Griselda had seen all of it and was more than happy to rewind it in her mind's eye. As her foot connected with his face she could see the spit flying out of his mouth, he had not been expecting that. Or rather he had not been expecting such a kick to come from her. At least him and Keita were alike in that fact that they had been completely caught off guard by it.

The difference what they did next was vastly different however. While Keita used both his hands to keep himself from hitting the ground, Grimlock hit the ground with a thud that made him bounce up and hit the ground again. Laying on the ground, she could tell that she had literally killed the air straight out of him. He's wasn't going to get up any time soon.

"Man, you are weak." Griselda laughed as she knelt down and felt his face. It was not with the delicate touch that he was too. In the place of of her soft and slow strokes that he had felt some many times before, her fingers trailed across his skin dragging their nails across his skin. Then she slapped him.

"You're pathetic, don't you have anything to say for yourself you damn coward." Griselda snarled as she lifted him to his feet once more, this time his eyes were positioned to look at her. Instead of at once again speaking to his defense, he tried to run again. Not even getting two steps into his sprint, he was cut off by Griselda's fist slamming into the side of his face. He hit the ground with another thud, he never did learn, did he.

"I don't know what I saw in you." Griselda gripped his collar and pulled him up and onto her back. "You are really light." Griselda stated as she walked on.

"Whatever you're going to do to me won't be worse than this, you can leave me here and not be branded a killer." This was final ditch effort, trying to use his brain to get her scared, unfortunately for him, she had thought this through and she knew that the chances of everything going wrong would be every minimal, and there was little risk for her.

"Don't worry, the fun part hasn't even started yet." And with that Grimlock let out a scream that was louder than anything she had ever heard, it was even more proof of how much a coward this sad excuse for a man was.

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Ah, hope you all enjoyed chapter 200

It certainly has been a joy to write all of them, this one especially

Next chapter will be up in a few

Have a wonderful day

-Kirk


	201. Rabbit

February 14, 2024

-Griselda, Keita, Grimlock-

"Hello Grimlock, Nice of you to finally wake up." It was Griselda. If he could have ran away that would've been exactly what he would've done, but his jolt told him that he was constrained in many ways.

Attached to both of his hands were zip ties, unrelenting towards him, they would only break if he had a weapon, which he did not. His legs were a different matter. They were still restrained but he could tell that it was something different that was restraining them. Instead of the annoyance of plastic he had to deal with, the cold metal made his legs curl up, at least as far as they could. Now what he didn't understand were the last two holding him back. One of them squeezed his stomach which made it easily ten times more uncomfortable while the other didn't do anything, at least if he didn't try to escape. If he did this one would choke him, which would most likely be even more uncomfortable than all the other ones combined.

"What did you do to me." Grimlock growled as he tried to loosen himself. From Griselda reaction he could tell that his growl was anything but intimidating. He would relish the day he got loose of these binds and finally put her where she was supposed to be.

She patted his head. These were not the fingers that he had remembered from so many times before. They were rough and callous, almost as if they had done nothing other than hold her sword, she was still the woman she had turned into. There was no hope for her. Though he probably should have realised that when she dragged him out of a city.

"Nothing yet darling, just you wait though, I have some special things planned for you, I think you are going to like it." Her voice sounded oddly creepy. It reminded him of the Laughing Coffin member he had met up with some time ago. A grim looked replaced the look of fear that had been plastered all of his face. He hated Laughing Coffin, they failed him.

"You can't do anything, you're too weak." Grimlock laughed insanely. He was losing his nerves badly, even if he is held down by restraints, it still felt as though he was going to shiver out of the chair. Much to his displeasure, he did not managed to do this, much as he was aiding the efforts.

"Too weak, then what are you, a bug." Griselda laughed as she pulled out her menu. "You know, I thought I might let you decide on what you want to get stabbed by today, being as it is Valentine's day." Griselda said as she walked over to Grimlock and showed him the menu. "So what's it to be then?" Griselda asked sarcastically as she scrolled through he inventory. It was full of useless junk but Griselda was to pragmatic to get rid of any of it, she still saw it's uses.

"You know I'm not going to choose anything." Grimlock spit on Griselda's face. Without even seeing her face he knew that he had just angered her. While she wasn't the wasn't the most outgoing woman back in the real world but she did still have the sense of pride that had seemed to have amplified inside the game. She wouldn't stand be spit on, and she would backlash him as most women did, they were temperamental all he needed to was push certain buttons and they would do what he wanted them to do.

"Keita, could you come in here please." Griselda called out. She had a lot more restraint than she should have, then he knew she had. What had changed with her, had the game warped her brain soo much that none of what her wasn't left behind. What had happened? "You're lucky that I he talked me into keeping you alive." She whispered to his ear before she walked up to talk to Keita.

"How's it going on in here?" The boy named Keita asked. He couldn't really bring himself to calling him something other than a boy as that was what he was. Maybe fifteen he was tona had a young face. Innocent would be the world to describe him, he was nowhere the replace she should've gotten in his absence.

"He's already got some bark, I don't think he'll let up anytime soon." Griselda stated as she looked back to him. Making sure he still had the smug long that he had one when he spit at her, he smiled back. "See, this idiot." Griselda rolled her eyes, or he assumed she did.

"Should I get the sleeping draft or are we still going to proceed?" Keita said as he opened his menu and materialized a jar of what he could only assume was the sleeping draft. That must've been what they had knocked him out with as there was no he fell asleep on his own while riding on Griselda shoulder. That must've been a really bumpy ride.

"We are going to proceed." Her voice instantly turned cold as she started to sift through her menu. The kids eyes bulged out as he heard her voice but almost immediately readjusted it and acted normal. Grimlock's eyes widen as he saw the item that she had pulled out, a dagger. However, if it had been just any old dagger he wouldn't have froze up, this dagger was one of the few items he had made for his wife.

"Should I do it, or a you okay?" Keita offered as he walked up to Griselda. Griselda held up her hand and his walk was instantly stop. His face look slightly downcast at this. "I'll go out a guard the entrance, I'll be right outside if you need anything." And with that he walked out of the cave that they were in.

Looking back to his ex-wife, or wife they never got offical annulled, he'll hold that over her once they got back to the real world, her saw her face was very much akin to her younger companion. What was the deal with them two anyways. Well, from what he could tell he wasn't going to spend a lot of time with them, so he would have enough time to figure it out.

"Remember this dagger, I do, you gave it to me for Valentine's day, last year, amongst other things and I thought as a present for our new relationship you would do something else for me this year." Griselda said as she picked up the dagger and placed it into his hand. "Now let's get to the point because, guess what, your ass is starting to annoy me." Griselda said as she grinned and hovered her hand right over the dagger. Grimlock's eyes widen as he realised what Griselda was about to do, and he instantly tried to get the dagger out of his hand. "It's no use, we used some yolk to stick it to your hand, it won't let go from anything.

"NOOOOOOOO!" Grimlock screamed as Griselda slammed her hand on the dagger. Even though she was the one who had her health reduced, she not only the one not screaming, she also was the one smiling, they're hypothesis had worked perfectly. Instead of her gaining the orange cursor it had stayed in the person who was holding the weapon that had done the damage, Grimlock. They could commence on to phase three.

"Looks like it isn't your lucky day, you would've gotten out of here pretty easy if it hadn't worked, but now you at least get to stay alive." Griselda grinned as she walked out of the cave. They would leave him in there until he had a permanent orange marker then send him to jail. This was going to be an epic piece of revenge.

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How to capture a scumbag

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter(s) will be up in a week

Have a wonderful week till then

-Kirk


	202. Rack

February 14, 2024

-Kirito, Asuna, and Keita-

She remembered him from somewhere but she couldn't remember just exactly where. His fair face isn't really anything of note but he looked rather old compared to other people his age. From everything that Asuna saw from him he looked around fifteen but that wasn't really anything of note. What was however, was that it seemed as though Kirito and him knew each other. Not only that, they detested each other.

Screams were amplified of the walls of the cave. It was the male once again and this made Asuna unsheath her sword and start to walk towards the cave entrance. However her walk was cut short almost immediately as she started. She only walked two steps before Keita moved in front of her.

"You're not going in." His tone was defiant, resolute, it was absolutely clear that Keita wasn't ever going to let them pass. Even with his spear on his back, he still managed to put a front that could make Asuna hesitate. This only made Asuna waver for a second, after she was one of the strongest on the front lines. Asuna opened her mouth but Her moment of pause made her slower than Kirito

"Move aside." This was even more curt and powerful than Asuna had ever heard him. It made her see Kirito in another light, he was strong and not just with his sword. Even with those two words and nothing else, Asuna could tell that the history between them, a deep one at that.

"No." His retort was equally if not more so as rude and short as Kirito's. They had some history together and from what she could tell it was nowhere near good. From what she had suspected it was not something that Asuna would dare to ask him any time soon. Anything that was this deep was obviously something extremely deep that Kirito would tell her when he was ready to reveal himself.

"Move." Still curt as ever.

"No." The player's eyes grew even more narrowed. "I'll never move for you." He could have spit afterwards and Asuna wouldn't have been surprised about it as it really seemed as though he had wanted to or, at least it seemed as though he had the idea then managed to talk himself out of it. He obviously had some sort of moral high ground compared to Kirito. Or maybe he just thought he did?

"Move Keita." Kirito said resolute as ever. The player's name was Keita and felt as though she had heard the name before. Maybe Argo had told her, it could've have been Kirito now that she thought about it. After all Kirito had a lot of time spent by himself, this might be one of the enemies he made in that time.

"Make me." Keita said as he took his spear his back on readied it. Asuna immediately felt the aura of strength that just exuded from Keita. He wasn't some novice tier mid level player, he obviously had the potential to be a frontline member. Looking over at Kirito she noticed that Kirito didn't even seem taken aback by this. He had expected it or at least it wasn't surprising.

"You know what's going on in there right." While this was a question the tone of which was never something at which Asuna would respond to. It would garner more of a ticked of response from her rather than an actually answer

"Of course, I helped her." The other player was a her then, Asuna would have to give her a round of applause if they were ever able to speak equally to each other. From the talks in the crowd her display of skill was damn near breathtaking.

"Stand down Keita."

"Or what." Kieta swung his axe and it end right before Kirito's neck. It hovered there while Keita spoke again. "We both know you don't have it in you to raise your sword against me. There is no situation would you would even attempt to raise your sword against yet, only knock my weapon away." Keita smirked as he could tell he was one hundred and fifty percent correct. "So stand down Kirito, you owe me at least that much, for them." Keita said as he flipped his spear back onto his back. Asuna didn't know how he did it but somehow he had ended the conversation without even so much as a retort from Kirito.

"Alright." It was strained but Asuna knew that Kirito was finished, he would no longer attempt to get Keita to stand aside, he didn't want to anymore. Or rather doing so would go against whatever had happened in their past. None of that mattered, their past was their own, she didn't care about it, at least right now. All Asuna cared about was getting into that cave so she could help that player.

"I like hell, I don't care what has happened in your guy's past, all that care about is getting into that cave behind you, so move out of my way before I move you." Asuna placed her hand on her rapier and let her right foot step back, she was in position to attack. The teeth had no came out.

"I won't stand aside, you'll have to kill me to let me fail her, so try me, I'll show you my strength." Keita said as he straightened his back and crossed his arms. Even though he was definitely the weakest character out of the situation he somehow kept his controlling situation without even giving an inch.

"How can you let yourself defend something like what's happening in there, what would happen if the people back in the real world learned of what you did here, how could you live with yourself?" Asuna asked him.

"I would live with myself because I'm doing the right thing, I don't need anything more than that." Keita snorted before speaking making Asuna anger rise further.

"You'll let him die then." Asuna pointed behind Keita.

"Die!" Keita laughed as he ran his left hand over his face. "You really think that I would do that. I have to so that hurts after all, if it wasn't for me he would have been long dead. Instead of trying to insult who I am, you should be apologizing to me, he won't die and that's thanks to me." Keita was basically just playing with Asuna and he was doing a hell of a good job. While Asuna's talk had just made him laugh his words had made her more angry. Her fiery nature was showing through.

Then a scream echoed off the walls from inside the cave and this basically made Asuna throw away anything that may have taken root in Asuna's mind from Keita's last statement. Keita would have to physically stop her if he didn't want her to go in, she was done with talking to him. One foot after the next, Asuna started to walk towards the entrance while Keita never moved a centimeter. Then the other player came out from the cave, her hand was crimson.

"It works, but stings like hell." The player exclaimed as she shaking her hand. It was obvious that she had not noticed that Keita was not alone at first. "Thank you Keita for keeping them out." She said as her eyes dart from Asuna and Kirito to Keita and back again. Without a word Keita bowed his head in acknowledgement. "So what did you all want." The player asked without skipping a beat. Her tone was a bit too cheerful for some for all intents and purposes has bleeding hand.

"What you doing in there?" Her voice was a lot less harsh as it once had been, though it did still retain the edge that she had.

"Revenge, he deserved all of it, plus I'm not doing anything illegal, technically he is." She said as raised his hand up and showed it to Asuna. There was definitely a deep gash in her hand, while it would heal it was obvious it was made by a weapon, stabbed straight through to be exact.

"And what did he do to deserve it?"

"Well, he tried to have me killed, he failed miserably and well he deserves all of what I'm doing. If he would have actually tried to kill rather than pay for me to die then he would be off the hook, but he's a coward so it's worth it, I'm going to make his life a living hell for as long as possible." She said with her tone being way to lighthearted for what she was saying.

"May I ask who is in there?" Asuna asked. This would be her last question the last one in her mind at the moment at least.

"My husband."

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Hope you all like my take on episode 5 and 6

Next chapter will be up in a few

The zip ties are whatever plastic equivalent is in this world

Have a great day!

-Kirk


	203. Run

February 17, 2024

-Diavel, Ran and Tsubaki-

Diavel pointed his sword at the pink haired player in front of him. As he had done many times before, Diavel prepared for the onslaught of attacks that she would dish out. In his opinion she was the most dangerous player in all of Aincrad. At least she wasn't a player killer, then they would have a really problem on their hands. Thankfully that wasn't the case and Diavel could focus at the problem at hand.

Every problem has a solution. No matter the issue, nor the gravity, it can be overcome with the right conditions and solutions. Now, all Diavel had to do was figure those out. This had proved to be quite the task as Diavel's cognitive skills were nothing compared to Tsubaki's physical prowess.

A wave of sound flew through the air as Tsubaki struck his shield. The girl had a lot more power than her body should allow her, it somehow surpassed even that of his own. He wouldn't be surprised if she was one of the strongest players in the game.

Her combination of speed, strength and brains were some of the strongest on any player, and yet she had all three. The only person Diavel could saw was faster than her was Asuna though he suspected that some others may just be slightly faster. Somehow her one handed sword was just as a two handed longsword, which was a feat not possessed by many. And her mind was only surpassed by Ran who could do what she did and more.

With all that he had, Diavel thrusted his sword at Tsubaki, who dodged easily but fell right into the position to be bash by his shield. While he knew that Tsubaki must've known this was coming, he doubted that she had a counteroffensive to throw at him. For that he was correct as Tsubaki sidestepped and ducked underneath it. It didn't even have the chance to try a ruffle her hair.

And now came her counteroffensive, what Diavel thought that she had but doubted she could enact it. Apparently he had played straight into her hand, or rather the odds had been stacked in her favor by herself. Knowing that he could readjust his shield's path, Tsubaki easily got extremely close to Diavel and came at him with a vertically that had a ton of forward momentum in it.

Releasing that he only had one option, Diavel raised his sword to match Tsubaki's and brought it close to his body. If it was outstretched then it would not do much but if it was close to his body the reinforced arm strength may back it slightly more immovable, and every bit counted even if it was negligible.

Even though their swords hit each other, Tsubaki blew past him with amazing speed. He could hear her sword whistling through the air. Anticipating her next moved, Diavel through all of his momentum and weight into turning around. Any other way would result in him being to slow to be able to attempt to block her next attack. Thankfully he was able to raise his shield in time.

Without a single second to spare, Diavel raised his shield and it would take the full blow of Tsubaki's attack, the one she had put soo much momentum into. Then he released his folly to late, he had already was in too deep, he would need to at least play it through if he wanted a chance.

Since her attack was a horizontal it would be able to push his shield out of the way, if not disarm him. That would almost certainly lead to his loss, and since he would without a doubt lose his shield, Diavel's right foot slid back. Although his counter measure was utter garbage and had a near one hundred percent chance for failure, that was all that he had and Diavel wasn't going to let his chance dwindle down to zero just yet.

Even before he had been disarmed of his shield he knew that Tsubaki already had seen straight through his plan and knew what she was going to do and even the outcome. He had already lost. Even so, all of that was conjecture, he didn't know that for sure until it actually happened, so he would carry his plan to the end until it did fail or succeed as he hoped.

As soon as his shield was forcefully shoved off his arm, Diavel pounced on Tsubaki. Unfortunately her reaction time was nothing to scoff at and this made it so his sword was once again matched to tsubaki's and match that his sword had consistently lost. Plus tsubaki even had time to jump into a better position and raise her sword to have the maximum amount of power in her next action.

Their swords met and Tsubaki did something that Diavel had never once seen a player do before in a duel. Instead of holding her position, Tsubaki slid her sword down Diavel's until it hit the crossguard. Thankfully Tsubaki wasn't going to break through it anytime soon but it didn't seem as she practically cared about how strong the crossguard was as she just continued on with her full power. She pushed so hard that Diavel's was pushed with it until she hit his leg and essential took his leg out from underneath him.

"OUCH!" Diavel had just land face first on the cold floors of the training room. "Next time could you not do that." Diavel groaned as he rolled himself into a sitting position. This was somewhat of an actually task as having the air knocked out of you kind of makes you want to just lay there for a bit. "Soo what did I do wrong this time?" Diavel asked as he looked over to the younger, brown haired girl.

"Better than last time." Ran said as she pushed herself off the wall she had been propped up herself against for the duration of his and Tsubaki's fight. She walked over to his shield and attempt to pick it up, from the look on her face it was heavy than she had been expecting.

"Doesn't feel like." Diavel laughed as he had laid back down on the floor and mental compared this duel to the others. In this one he had stayed up for longer but in return a much more painful end. So which one was better?

"Tsubaki?" Ran said as she picked up Diavel's shield a started to various attacks with it. While most of her attacks didn't look as though they had all that much reach or speed, Diavel could see a slight use for them. Instead of using his ever coveted sword to attack he could use his shield or better yet, he could use a shield attack to bait or fend off a foe.

"You were a lot hard to take down this time, you actually used your brain somewhat, which is an improvement from the times before. You were bold and reckless and didn't stand down even when you knew you were going to loss. It's a deadly combination of traits but without some brains you'll just end up on the receiving end of a wipeout." Tsubaki stated as she put away her sword, or rather it crawled up her arm, he wasn't quite sure what it did in reality, it confused him a bit.

"The problem with you Diavel is that you have been facing computer generated foes all this time, it's almost as if all of your moves are muscle memory. You need to adapt during the fight when you face other people. If you don't then you'll be easily predictable able a taken out almost immediately. And also, don't go on the defense. The moment you do you'll loss especially to someone like them, they'll tear you to shreds in seconds flat." Ran stated blunt without regard for Diavel's feelings. This was totally fine for Diavel as she was right, he need to get used to it.

"Again?" Diavel asked as he stood up.

XXXX  
Good old fashioned MMO training

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter(s) will be up in a week

Have a wonderful week

-Kirk


	204. Ripper

February 20, 2024

-Sinon and Saffi-

"Do I really have to do this?" Sinon said exasperatedly as she brandished a knife. This was about the twentieth time she had said this and well, it still felt appropriate to her somehow, she didn't exactly now, but it did. Or maybe it was the fact that she really didn't want to do it. With all of her being she just didn't see the use in doing it. Why in the world would she need to be better a knives, it's not like she was ever going to use them again.

"Do you really want me to explain why you wouldn't be able to use your bow all the time?" Saffi asked as she too brandished her knife, in fact the knife was also the exact same. Her tone akin to someone saying a rhetorical question but Sinon knew better than that. Never did Saffi ask a rhetorical question, while it may sound as one, she fully expected you to answer because she had a counterargument ready no matter what. It really wasn't worth trying to fight over anyways, this duel would be over in a couple of moments anyways.

"Let's get this finished then." Sinon stated as she took out another knife, brandished it then fell back into her stance. Holding the one in her left backwards while the other correctly, she had her left had outstretched while her right was held back, just centimeters off her face. Sinon felt her face drop into the cold demeanor it had always maintained whenever in a fight.

"Straight and to the point, I like it." Saffi also her into her stance but her's way different from Sinon's. While she typically sticked to a more defensive stance, Saffi was on complete offense, there was only one opening as her whole entire body was open. Both of her arms were outstretch, each holding a dagger backwards. Instead of her usually cheerful yet contemptuous smile she had on a different smile, one that Sinon sense was breed from the grounds of competition.

"Let's go ahead!" Saffi said as she launched herself into the air, much further than anyone should be able to do, especially without a skill. It took real acrobatic skill to be able to do that, a not the type built from the game. The type that was perfected back in the real world, maybe she was a prodigy as her stories told her. Once hitting the apex of her height, Saffi reshifted all of her weight to where Sinon was and fell at extreme speeds. Not only was she falling at Sinon, Saffi also sent the knife from her left hand to clear the landing ground.

Sinon jumped out the way of the landing ground quickly, she didn't want to be in that crossfire. Without thinking, Sinon threw her knife from her right had behind her. It would hit the landing mark she was sure of it it, while she didn't use daggers all that much, her aim was nearly perfect. However, it had a next to zero chance of hitting Saffi as it wouldn't be too hard to avoid. Not only did Sinon not have the sight to enhance her aim and thought, it was also thrown backwards. In order to this Sinon had sacrificed much of it's speed to keep the accuracy. She would rather it be a nuance than it fly of in a random direction.

The sound of three daggers clanging against the ground told Sinon that Saffi had used one of her daggers to take out Sinon's. Having run off from where she was going to land, Sinon turned around a quickly threw the dagger in her right hand, previously in her left. There was no doubt in her mind that Saffi would be right on her tail and she was correct. A loud clang echoed throughout the room as the dagger from Saffi's left hand knocked hers straight of course. Even though Saffi wasn't left handed her left hand was just as potent as her right, if not more. According to Saffi it was the training that she had gone through that had functional made her ambidextrous.

Not even a second later, the dagger from Saffi's had been launched at Sinon with high speeds. Unlike most of daggers before it, which spun as a wheel if it were on the ground, this dagger spun differently. It cut through the air like a propeller, it was ten times faster than the last one. Even with all of her reaction time, Sinon had barely dodged it but she did give herself the time to grab two more daggers off her legs. Both her and Saffi had a multitude of daggers strapped to them at odd and random places.

The whole idea for this had sparked out of Saffi's incredibly random mind and apparently the thrills of almost dying everyday two weeks wasn't enough for her and thought a game would suffice. So she had invented the game of throwing knives at each other, she probably didn't go through a lot of thought truth be told. If Saffi had one weakness it would be her mind. She could basically push the realm of possibilities physically, but mentally she was nowhere near doing anything. Though she did somehow drag Sinon into this random game so she had to at least give her some props.

By the time she had looked at Saffi again she was already in the air even though she had only took her eyes off of her for somewhere around two seconds. Then she threw both of her dagger's at Sinon with a much closer range than before and somehow they were in perfect sync with each other, no even banging into one another. It would take all that Sinon had to get her out of this pickle. Thankfully, Sinon was willing to give it that.

Her dagger went up from her hand before she could even think about doing it, and she jumped out of the way. Two identical clangs against the ground told Sinon that not did her dagger not doing anything, she had narrowly avoided the daggers and… Sinon turned around and used her left dagger to intercept Saffi's. It had barely done anything, but the tiny shift in motion had sufficed in take the dagger of course. It would not fit her. However, she had more problems to do deal with.

Pain echoed straight across her face and destroyed all thought except for one thought, MY FACE HURTS! Saffi's leg had connected with side of her face and she slammed against the ground. However she wouldn't fall just yet, she would persevere. Using the bounce she had gained from the speed at which she hit the ground, Sinon pushed herself back onto her feet… for only a second. Saffi immediately bod slammed into the ground and tackled her into the ground with the handle of her blade held at Saffi's neck.

"You're light." Sinon managed to speak out even though her entire body was aching out. Being hit into the ground wasn't exactly the type of thing most people jumped back up from. The one's who do certainly don't get back up once hit again, if the first one didn't take your breath out then the second sure was going to. Sinon exhaled after quite a long and large inhale.

"You're pretty tough aren't you." Saffi stated as she got up off of Sinon and held out her hand for Sinon to grab. This however was a mistake to do as Saffi picked her up flipped in mid air twice then slammed her back into the ground. This time Sinon made audible noises other than her body hitting the ground.

"What the hell was that for!" Sinon asked, or rather shout in short gasps for air.

"ANNNNND out, Saffi is declared the winner." This was followed by Saffi making sounds as if the crowd was cheering. This of course pissed of Sinon who in retaliation, took Saffi's leg out from under her and had her hit the ground, not as she hit the ground but rather hard nonetheless. "Thanks." Saffi stated in a laugh as she laid on the ground next to Sinon with no effort made to get back up. Sinon was kind of hoping she would so she could take the leg out from underneath he again.

"I hate you." Sinon stated in one single breath

"No, you love me." Saffi laughed.

XXXX

Well happy Christmas eve to everyone that celebrates it

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next one will be out in a few

Have wonderful day!

-Kirk


	205. Rootless

February 25, 2024

-Asuna and Lizbeth-

Sparks flew off the sword and grinding wheel as Lizbeth sharpen Asuna's sword. It had obviously seen some wear and tear but it had been basically kept to the same from when she had made it. Lizbeth would still consider it to be one of her more recent masterpieces, along with Kirito's swords and Silica's daggers.

"Are you listening!" While this did sound as though it had a questioning tone to it, that was not how it came out. In fact, it came out completely different in pretty much every way as honestly, Asuna had probably scream to get her to hear it. Plus the words just kind of just blending together into one big stew.

"What!" Lizbeth stated, just as loud as they had both been fighting through the sound of flying sparks. As if she had known the answer in a class, Lizbeth launched her right had into the air. Even though this looked a little weird there was no way Asuna could laugh at her, the sword was way too menacing.

"I was speaking and you weren't listening." If she would've stamped her foot it would've been perfect to complete the image that Lizbeth had seen when Asuna said those words. It took everything that Lizbeth had not to drop to the floor and burst out laughing. Who would ever suspect that Asuna would make such a good teenager?

"Sorry I was kind of sharpening your sword like you had asked me to." Lizbeth retorted with as much sarcasm as she could push into the phrase. The end result was as emphasised as a piece from a world renown pianist.

"It was really important." Asuna said as she plopped down on to the bed couch thing that Lizbeth had for quite honestly way too long. This made Lizbeth bite her tongue almost immediately. While Lizbeth was her friend and generally as friends go, they are supposed to be supportive and listen to what each other has to say. For the most part this meant that you were supposed to listen the problems and dilemma that your friend was in. However, Lizbeth kind of wanted to make Asuna listen to her remarks of sarcasm just a little longer. Luckily for Asuna, Lizbeth was not a monster, not yet at least.

"What is it?" Lizbeth asked in a tone her voice was rarely ever in. Most of the time her voice had a certain edge to it that made talking about subjects with gravity a little hard for to do appropriately. Most of the time she would end cracking a joke at the wrong time or in the wrong manner or just cracking joke in general. Sometime levity is not needed, or so she had been told.

Lizbeth brandished Asuna's sword for a couple of moments then examined it. This was to make sure that stopping in the middle of sharpening wouldn't do any damage. While Asuna made need her right now, Lizbeth would rather not face the wrath that would ensue if she broke the present she had gotten from Kirito. Once she had checked it enough, Lizbeth placed the ornate rapier on a table and sat next to Asuna.

But this did not turn out as Lizbeth had expected. Upon sitting down she expected to be barraged be a series of words, most of which not making sentence and then having to tell the Lightning Flash Asuna to slow down. She wouldn't say that to her face but it would be playing in her mind. Instead Asuna seemed to be lost completely in thought, entranced by every word that echoed in her mind. "What is it?" Libzeth reiterated even more than gently than last time. It was subconscious rather than forced this time however.

"Have you… Have you ever…" Asuna couldn't seem able to muster up one single sentence, or even more than a few words. With her face in her hands Asuna managed to get out the words at barely more than a whisper, "Have you ever fallen in love?" What followed was probably the hardest couple of seconds in Asuna's life and not exactly the easiest for Lizbeth either.

Lizbeth's mind started racing faster than it had ever done before, creating questions for herself to answer along with jokes to most certainly not say. However in the couple of seconds that her mind was barraged with words she had found one that was simply better than the rest, there was no competition against it. "I haven't." Lizbeth stated simply.

"What would… you do if you did?" Asuna asked. It seemed as though she was going to live and breath whatever Lizbeth's answers were. This just made it feel as though Lizbeth had a huge responsibility that she really didn't want.

"I would go after it." While she didn't know if that's what she would do, it felt as though it was approximately what she would do, if she had Asuna's courage. Though she could see Asuna having some issues with doing that. It seemed as though her courage knew some bounds.

"But he's already rejected me." Lizbeth could hear the sound of tears failing on the ground. There was lots of them, almost way too many. In Lizbeth's humblest opinion, she had gotten herself into quite a pickle, Asuna too.

"It's Kirito isn't it?" She knew it was Kirito. He was the only one she ever talked about. Not even the comrades, all she did was talk about Kirito. To be honest Lizbeth had been wondering for a little bit if Asuna was just oblivious to her feelings. The increase of tears splashing against the ground increased exponentially.

"When did he reject you." From what she knew off Kirito, or what Asuna had told her it seemed as though he liked her, as least as a friend. Maybe he had friendzoned her and who would do that. Asuna was one of the most coveted females in all of Aincrad. While that number wasn't the biggest it was still impressive. Hell, if she was a boy she would go after Asuna along with all the others. It didn't make sense that Kirito would reject her.

"... A year ago." That was around the time when he had left without telling anyone. Lizbeth knew that Asuna had taken this quite hard but never brought it up. As she didn't know Kirito she had no confidence in attempting to find a solution to that problem. Though he was way too late, Kirito did manage to somewhat get Asuna to forgive him for what he had done. And the only that happened was because Asuna still had feelings for him. All the pieces aligned.

"Asuna, look at me." Lizbeth said as she got off the bed a knelt on the ground in front of Asuna. Her words seemed to have not down anything and in the interest of not having her legs soaked, Lizbeth used a more hands on approach. Using both of her hands delicately she lifted Asuna head up so that she was looking at her. Though Lizbeth doubted that Asuna could see her though the excessive amount of tears, this was good enough.

"Kirito won't reject this time, I don't think he rejected you in the first place. He was dealing with a lot and instead of dealing with he ran. He was younger and a lot immature than he is now. The game changed him like you and I he's a lot more mature and he wants to be with you. Why else would he try to rekindle a flame that he had all but exiled? I think he likes you. There is nothing that you should be worried of Asuna. You're awesome and amazing, no one in there right mind would pass up an opportunity to date you, much less Kirito. You have to go after him now before it's too late. What happens if he dies before you can tell him how you feel, what then how would you feel? Just tell him how you and if I am right, and I am, then he'll reciprocate it, got it?" Lizbeth asked after one of her longest times without a breath. And all she got out of Asuna was a head shake. While this was what she had wanted, the least Asuna could do was actually say words.

XXXX

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter will be up on the last day of this year

To everyone that's is on winter break, have great one

To everyone who is not, have an excellent week.

-Kirk


	206. Relic

February 28, 2024

-Kirito, Sinon and Argo-

"This seems like a terrible idea." Argo was not exactly on board with the idea they had planned out. Then again, the plan did involve her out in the open with only two people to guard her so it's not exactly the best plan in the world. However, the vehement stance against it isn't exactly the best when it came to making the situation enjoyable.

"Shut up." Sinon said as she knelt to the ground and felt it. It was cold, somewhat artificial looking floors. It didn't help that they were floating, or moved slightly for that matter. It made the whole entire place look futuristic in a way. In Sinon's opinion it was a rather cool place to be, if it didn't conceal Laughing Coffin's hideout.

"Quiet." Kirito stated with a brisk yet quiet tone all the same. He had his hand placed on the floor and closed his eyes. The slightest movement, the rustle of clothes or even the silent footsteps could give them away. All Kirito need to do was sense one. At once Sinon knew what he was doing and consequently shut her mouth and stopped moving. Once it was silent Kirito had the greatest chance of sensing someone.

"No this is a terrible idea, Kirito why isn't Asuna hear to protect me?" Argo didn't have the same idea, though there was no doubt in Sinon's mind that she knew what was Kirito trying, she just didn't care. One of these days she was going to get someone killed because she couldn't shut her mouth, Sinon would rather it not be Kirito. Argo had now moved her hands to be on her hips.

"Shut up." Kirito said without opening his eyes.

"And why should I huh, if we're going to be attacked then I'm dead. She'll scream and you can't take on twenty members at once." She made a little scared face when she said the word scream. Sinon immediately pulled out an arrow and quick drew it onto her quiver and aimed it at Argo. This was done in a couple of seconds, a lot faster than Argo could even comprehend what was going on.

"Try me." The quiver was resting on her cheek as she watched Argo slow become unsettle as she looked at Sinon longer and longer waiting for her to stop. This didn't dissuade Sinon from stopping, once she had her arrow prepared she would fire when given the chance. It seemed as though Argo had been surprised by this fact either.

"Come on Sinon, we both know you're not going to to shot me. Even with that menacing face of yours, you're not a player killer. So put down the toy a defend me."Argo smiled contemptuously as she stuck her tongue out and waggled it a little bit. What Sinon did next however made he slurp it back into her mouth. Sinon released the arrow towards Argo.

Sinon contrary to what Argo and many others especially from her guild say, she is not a mean person. It just so happens that she doesn't to take anything from anyone and unfortunately for Argo, that meant she really didn't get the good end of the arrow. In fact, she got the pointy end that could kill someone in a single hit, which she narrowly dodged, in part to none one but herself. "What was that for." The shout that Argo display could be heard basically throughout the entire dungeon, if not beyond that.

"You were annoying me." Sinon said plainly as the arrow fly off into space. It may or may not haven't hitting anything, Sinon didn't know. The dungeon was practically boundless from what Argo had told them and was incredibly hard to navigate, much less map. It was one of the few dungeons in the game that Argo didn't have a map of. SInon couldn't think of a better place for the Laughing Coffin header quarters.

"That wasn't very nice." Argo crossed her arms and pouted.

"Nor was it meant to be, so shut up." Sinon stated as glowered at Argo, who into glowered back. This little mouse girl didn't know when to give up did she. Persistence was key to somethings but to others it was a deadly bane. That bane wasn't exactly the best thing in the world and Argo was a shining example of this. Maybe she just liked her voice a little too much, or perhaps she wanted to die. Neither of these options Sinon liked, especially after spending a little bit too much time with her.

Her, Argo and Kirito had been walking through this dungeon for the better half of a day now and Sinon really wished that she hadn't volunteered for it. Surprisingly Kirito wasn't one to talk whilst on a mission and they hadn't had a full conversation thus far. It also didn't help that talking to Kirito was the reason she actually volunteered for it. With Kirito was a buffer, Argo's full nature was seen on display. Not only was she worthless, she was also quite annoying the worst combination in Sinon's eyes.

Of course it didn't help that what they were up to was grueling work. Sinon would have classified it as busy work if not for the impending doom the Laughing Coffin was near somehow gave it. The three of them had been charged with making sure there were no traps, which was Sinon's job and find Laughing Coffin's base. So far they hadn't found either unless Argo counted as a trap of course. Sinon placed her bow across her back once more then waited as Kirito took in the surrounding area. Thanks to the fact that Argo had finally shut up, it was a much easier process than it had been a moment ago.

"They are some where near here, this is the heart of the dungeon." Kirito said as he stood up and looked around as if he had never seen anything before. As per usually, Kirito was in fact correct they had found the heart of the dungeon and presumably where Laughing Coffin's base would be. Looking up and down there were more floors to the dungeon than where they had been, this was either end where the boss would bem or the middle where the highest concentration of mobs were. "They're up." Kirito said as he walked to the nearest other floor and jumped onto it.

Once all three of them were on the platform gave rises and they were all shown to second layer of floating platforms. Then Sinon saw the faintest few of a large building floating above them on the third floor. If there had been a sign then it would be perfectly blocked out with ease. However thanks to how dark it was and how dark the dungeon was it was practically unnoticeable, only someone trying to find would find it.

"So that's it huh." Argo looked up at it and squinted at it, she was trying to make out the design of it for sure. It would no doubt be enough to hold a plethora of people inside, probably more than the numbers were had been told. Even the Knights of the Blood Oath and Storm of Centuries combined probably couldn't fill it up. The building was sure a stunning piece of architecture.

"You have the entire place mapped out right Argo?" Sinon asked as she took out one of her sight enhancers and looked up towards the castle. Across the front was the emblem of Laughing Coffin, it was no doubt their base.

"Yes, I'll be able to send to everyone as soon as I layer a connect them all." Argo stated as she finished mapping out a final section a put it away in her in game inventory.

"Argo." Kirito said as he turned to Argo to speak to her for the first time that day.

"Yes." Argo stood up straight and saluted. While it wasn't exactly the funniest thing, it did make Sinon chuckle. Maybe when she wasn't doing work she was actually bearable, that was the case, most likely.

"Tell Diavel and Keita that were ready to march on Laughing Coffin whenever." Kirito stated as he turned back to look at the looming tower. This was sure to be one of the toughest battles that they had to date.

XXXX

Happy new years to all of you

Somehow I made it another year and still all of the are trapped inside of this game

Maybe it's because I'm a psychopath

Next chapter will be up in a few

-Kirk


	207. Rule

March 4, 2024

-Zack-

His plan was working. Finally after all preparation that he had done over the ages, Zack had final achieved what he had initially thought to be impossible. Not impossible per say, but most likely impossible for him as he wasn't the best actor ever. Nor was he a good actor. Zack really didn't know how exactly he hadn't been caught but seeing him take on ten people at once definitely lead them to persuade them.

However know he was at the crossroads. Now he need to prove his strength, put it to the final test. Even though he was the only left handed person in Laughing Coffin that didn't mean that he got his title by default. The only people that were able to rival him were the guild leaders, PoH and Zaza. With few exceptions, most players in Laughing Coffin would fall under him almost immediately.

According to his sources inside Laughing Coffin when they were raided they would split up into to two different groups. One to attack the front line players and the other to escape. Zack and Zaza would be leading the group against the front line players while PoH would run with his tail between his legs. While the front lines would rather not have Laughing Coffin split up, Zack looked at this in a different light. The only players of extreme skill that they would have to face would be himself and Zaza. If his plan went to plan then he wouldn't have to face either of them. That was the dream at least.

Zack scoffed.

No matter how much he wanted it, his plan would likely go amiss. Zaza was stronger than him, there was no doubt in his mind. His straight up brutality combined with his skill and topped off with his blood lust made for an incredulously strong player. Those words didn't even begin to describe the heights that Zaza's skill had reached.

From what Zack had learned from the few that had seen his skill at first hand, he was able to disarm players in one linear. There had even been accounts were he straight broke a sword in half. His attack speed had been quote. "Lightning fast speed and unparalleled accuracy, his attacks never miss." The few Laughing Coffin members that could recall back when he did show off his skill, said that he was faster than Asuna, Stronger than Kirito, and even more versatile than himself.

He would be the enemy to beat.

Zack stood up and brandished his new spear. The spear had been given to him by Laughing Coffin's blacksmith for the battle ahead. It would be the spear of their destruction, it would no doubt kill off the most members of Laughing Coffin compared to anyone in the front lines. That was of course if he was able to have some time before he and Zaza dueled. Once he and Zaza faced of there would be no breaking apart. Only one of them would win, there would be no victory, only death.

Starting to twist and turn, Zack started to throw around his spear like it was nothing. It was basically an extension of his body at this point. He had the spear was one entity, both in body and mind. That was what he would need to be able to give Zaza a run for his money. Only then would he have the chance to take on Zaza. The skill at which Zaza possessed was far higher than anyone he had faced before or so he had been told.

Looking down at his spear, Zack admired the handiwork that had went into to it. Even though the blacksmith was working for killers, Zack still had to commend the blacksmith for his work. The entire long handle was completely smooth and metal. If his strength stat wasn't as high as it was then he would've had some trouble with lifting it, however he had raised to quite a high amount. To him, the spear was as light as a feather.

At the end of his spear was not the usual head that he had wielded every time before. Instead of the simple one headed edge that he had always wielded, it had one large with four other smaller ones. If laid on his side there would be two one each side of the larger head. Connecting the five together was one bend piece of wood. It wasn't the strongest thing but since the rest of the spear was so sturdy, this function was virtually unnoticeable.

Zack closed his eyes and started to move without thinking about it. Instantaneous and spontaneous, that was what he needed to be. No matter what if he used his brain he would be slower than Zaza by way to much and would get attack. In just a couple moment's of action he spun the spear above his head then used that momentum and made himself spin into a three hundred and sixty circular attack. Anyone that would have been near him either took a every blunt hit from the handle of his spear, or got impaled by the head. Neither of which sounded all that enjoyable in Zack eyes.

His defense needed to be stronger than ever before. No holes or gaps in it nor even the slightest way to get through it. If he gave any of those too Zaza he would die. On top of that he need stellar offense. While he was typically more of a defensive player, the right about of conservative offense bolstered a defense which was exactly what he had need. Zack doubted that his defense would be able to hold for forever, but if anything had a chance to that would be his offense.

At the right spends, angles, and precision he could potentially act as though he had for different weapons at the same time. The most any player could ever manage with was two with a sword. Some of the most talent shield and sword users could pull off three. However, in Zack's memory he was the only person that could attack with both his left and right and back and front of his spear. If he was going to stand against Zaza, he would rather be attacking at four rather than three or even two.

All of this was null and void if he couldn't manage to do at least one thing, he need to be unpredictable.

Everyone had heard about how Kirito had taken out Heathcliff and it was certain that even though Heathcliff had the upperhand, Kirito's brains and predictability lend him the win in the end of the day. That was all that he had need, just to get to be unpredictable and land one hit on the Zaza. Even though their respective swords didn't have the ability to one hit kill, it might as well be at it.

Most DPS players, such as Zack and Zaza had next to defense and were often one or two shoot by well placed hits. Zack knew this well from experience. Being on the winning side, whenever he got a good hit on his opponent's torso, he won. It didn't really matter much after that. The pain from the system would be enough to slow you do and anyone with a good attack speed could capitalize on that. Everyone in Laughing Coffin did.

Zack clean off his spear and attached it too his back. This was going to be the turning point of his life no matter what happened. Either he died as a hero on the battlefield, fighting against Laughing Coffin and ruining their plans, or he was chained up and sent to the jail like all the other player killers. Only time would tell now.

XXXX

Thank you to everyone who read all of the chapters

Another year has come and gone and I never thought it would be this long

Next chapter(s) will be up in the new year

Have a wonderful new years

-Kirk


	208. Ready

March 11, 2024

-Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Silica, Klein, Heathcliff, Ran, Keita, Griselda, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

"Alright everyone, today we match on Laughing Coffin." Keita said as he raised his spear up to the air. Standing in front of the strongest of the front lines, Keita gripped his spear as though it was his tether to the world. It was surreal to be standing in front of everyone, preparing to tell everyone everything on last time. "Thank you everyone for coming today, and for risking your life. We will attack their central base with extreme force. Most, if not all of Laughing Coffin will be there and we hope to finally take them out for good!" Keita exclaimed to the front line players. There was over a hundred of them in front of him

"However that means we will face some of the strongest foes that we have ever done before." Keita pointed to the board behind him. On their was multiple pictures of the most lethal of Laughing Coffin players. The players that even down on floor one they near about, these were the players that had killed over one hundred were the plagues of this land, the ones that the front lines, with Keita's and Alanza's leadership would strike down.

Keita smiled as clapping from his superiors in terms of level applauded him. Even Kirito, who he had long cut off all contact with. No matter the past differences, the arguments and quarrels, everyone that was here, had united themselves on one idea. Laughing Coffin needed to be olberliteated. Not a single speck of them could remain if they wanted Aincrad to actually have a chance of surviving. Everyone in the room knew it. Everyone would do anything to stop it. Replacing Keita in front of the players was the girl he had spent most of his time with, Griselda or her in game name, Alanza.

"Here we have some of the most dangerous foes you'll ever face." Griselda stated as she looked towards the board. Most of them were in sketch form as they had never been ever seen. Their names would be incredibly difficult to find if they didn't spread them like wildfire. However thankfully they did so the front lines had a name to attachment to the achievements.

"This is their leader, he goes by the title, Prince of Hell or PoH for short." Griselda stated as she pointed to the the top picture. "All we know of his abilities is that he is a fairly competent sword user. However the last time we had seen him in action was all back in the beginning. Therefore we can not assume his strength, be extremely cautious of him, especially since he is the leader of Laughing Coffin, he is priority number one." Griselda watched as a bunch of other players widen their eyes at this. Some of them probably didn't know what they had gotten themselves into.

"This is what seems to be the self acclaimed Left Hand of Laughing Coffin, Zack." From the looks of players around the room, most of them had heard of him. "In terms of fighting ability we have the most off him, he wields a spear and as his name suggests he is left handed. His strength and brains are incredibly high leading to the most dangerous player in Laughing Coffin. He has taken on some of the strongest members of Aincrad and came out unscathed. He is priority number two, take him out as soon as possible." Griselda said as she moved her hand away from the picture of him. Unlike the rest of them they had a picture of him, and yet somehow he was the one that terrified everyone the most.

"The second in command of Laughing Coffin is named The Red Eyed Zaza." She pointed to his picture. All that there was of not was two eyes the color of what his name would suggest. "From what we have learned, he was the one to train Zack into the way he was, however nothing else of him is known, not even his weapon. All we know is that his ability is enough to rival Zack, and that in itself is enough to give anyone a problem. We cannot underestimate this red player, and if given the chance he is priority number three, take out immediately." Griselda stated with a stoic face. If she should emotion now, especially now as they were about to attack they would lose members of their force. That was not an option, they needed every person they could get.

"Lastly is a red player named Gai." Griselda said as she pointed at the last picture. He was a lot less well known than the others yet still he was going to be one of the biggest threats they faced. "It is believed that he was the next apprentice that Zaza had taken under his wing. He wields a longsword in one hand but not much else is know about him. It has been rumor however, that an incredible amount of players had died him, his kills are on par with the likes of Zaza and Zack, while he is priority number four, do not treat him as anything less than the others, he is just as lethal." Griselda finally finished. With possibly breaking the moral of the players once again she turned back to Keita. It was his job to rally all of them together against Laughing Coffin.

"Alright everyone, do not fret, we both the numerical advantage over them and they don't know we are coming. If we do this correctly, then we will have nothing to fear." Keita said as he raise his spear in the air. While not looking as cool as a sword it still had the desired effect. Keita may not have been a guild leader or even a member of one the guilds, yet he was someone that the players would rally behind. His confidence and will to press on was unmatched, he would make a great leader some day.

"Today, we march on Laughing Coffin!" Keita yelled as he jabbed his spear into the air. It was even higher than it had been any other time and the response reflected this. They were ready to attack, ready to take out Laughing Coffin. "We will take them out!" Keita shouted once again. "Not a single one of them will be left, we will take out all of the red players!" Other players around Keita started to yell too. "We will free Aincrad from the fear of Laughing Coffin. We will destroy Laughing Coffin. And afterwards we'll march straight on Kayaba!" Everyone in front of him had their weapons raised. "WHO'S WITH ME!?" Keita shouted out as he turned around a looked towards the dungeon. Everyone behind him said or screamed yes.

"Today we begin the march on Laughing Coffin." Keita said as he looked off into the distance. Everyone else looked towards the dark abyss. They truly had a long march ahead of them. However not a single one of them minded nor would feel the time pass slowly. Each one of them would wait in anticipation for the coming fight. This fight against the guilds would finally eliminate the greatest foe the players had in the game so far. Once Laughing Coffin was dead all that would be left was Kayaba sitting in his computer chair. The was a moment of definite silence before Keita broke it again.

"Asuna, Kirito and Klein, organize your players and form your lines on the right, watch out for any of their scouts." Keita said he looked towards the three players. Each of them got to work fast. "Sinon and Diavel, you to do the same on the right. Ran and Tsubaki organize your players for the marching phase, have the be prepared for defense. " The only on to make any noise before doing their command was Ran, who said roger and saluted him. Once everyone was ready, Keita took a look around at all the players awaiting his orders.

"You got this." Griselda whispered in his ear. Whether he did or didn't need it, she did not know, but she did know that she wanted to help him out in any way possible.

"Today we destroy Laughing Coffin, March!" Keita yelled as he jabbed his spear forward.

XXXX

You ready for the assault on Laughing Coffin

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter will be up in a few

Have a wonderful day

-Kirk


	209. Rally

March 11, 2024

-Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Silica, Klein, Heathcliff, Ran, Keita, Griselda, Lux, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

"Are you ready Sinon." Saffi was poking her arm once again. She had been for the past ten minutes and never even once seemed as though she wanted to stop. One unfortunate part of Saffi was that she was incredibly persistent. Nothing seemed to be more than her capabilities. As long as she had set her mind to it, then it could and would be done. The annoying part was that it seemed always pertain to Sinon.

"I would be more ready if you weren't constantly poking my arm." Sinon snapped at Saffi as she turned her attention back to the road ahead. It was just as long as she had remember it when her, Argo and Kirito had mapped it out. Somehow with the battle at the end for the road it had expanded the road ahead. Instead of making the dull backgrounds of this vrmmorpg better, it had for a reason unbenounced to her, became even longer and manganous

"Come on Sinon, lighten up for a bit, this smile should be reserved for the battle." SIlica stated as she pulled the corner of Silica's mouth a tried to raise them. Sinon's stony face however, as per usual did not conform to this and stand as stolid as ever.

"Get back into formation." Sinon said as she picked up Silica and shoved her back into her line. This cause her to almost trip and fall face first into the ground. Thankfully Pina, who had replaced Silica in her stead, had stopped her by pushing her back up. Sinon didn't need to turn around to see the look that had replaced Silica's usually cheerful complexion.

"You should hide Sinon." This was not a helpful sentence for multiple reasons. Firstly there was absolutely nowhere to hide, running away would be better. Secondly, there was no way in hell that she would break formation, especially on an important day like today. And Lastly, it was Saffi. When was anything that she said helpful in the slightest? It never was helpful.

"WHY DID YOU DO THAT! DON'T TREAT ME LIKE A LITTLE KID!" Everyone's head turned towards them, even the ones all the way on the opposite side of the a hundred players. No one would ever suspected that someone of Silica's stature would be able to produce a sound so loud but somehow she had surpassed that even of the inspiring Diavel and Heathcliff speeches. Or well, Diavel's inspiring speeches and what Heathcliff says that attempt to try and pass as was as if Silica had took whatever they had used to write it down on, swallowed it, then puked it out amplifying the effects of her speech capabilities. As disgusting as it sounded it was actually kind of on point. The sound that had came out of her mouth, Sinon had never heard before.

"What are you doing." Sinon turned around and pulled Silica up to her. If someone was going to compromise the raid then she wouldn't have it be someone under her command. "Silica, I don't care about what I did to you or how you feel, just shut up and stay quite, all of this depends on the element of surprise, I won't have you ruin it for us." Sinon could tell from the way Silica's eyes looked downcast that she knew Sinon was right. Without another word Silica walked back into her position. Pina on the other hand, remained in the pout position that she had been in the whole entire time since being hit. The bad part was that it was directed at Sinon instead of Silica, she would most definitely not be healing her during this upcoming battle.

"Nice job Sinon." Saffi tried to pat her subordinate on the head but failed once Sinon raise her hand and blocked the incoming affection. Somehow the player that was seven years her senior was barely able to reach her shoulder in height. Quite frankly it was sad that a profession olympic athlete, according to Saffi at least, wasn't even taller than a grade schooler, or Silica for that matter, although it was kind of of close.

"Shut up." Sinon said stoically as she as she turned back and continued to look forward as she had been doing before. Or rather acted like it as she knew she was going to get stopped sooner rather than later by either Silica or Saffi. Sinon had her bets placed on the latter of the two. As per usual with the two of them, Sinon had guessed correctly.

"Soooo, Sinon, how's your day been?" Saffi asked as she she ran up beside her and start to walk backwards to that they could look at each other while have the conversation. Most of the people Sinon had command over had gotten used to Saffi by now but it was still strange to see what can only be considered a kid being on of the strongest front line members. Then again, she was an actual kid sooo, age doesn't matter inside Aincrad? Or maybe it does so you can get past the consent forms, Sinon lost interest in this topic almost immediately. It seemed as though her excuse to not answer Saffi's question had run it's course.

"It will be a lot better once this raid is over." Sinon finally stated truthfully. As her superior, even if she was annoying, Saffi deserved some type of response from her. The least Sinon could do was make it truthful.

"I can tell that Sinon." Now Saffi managed to ruffle her head. Sinon could just imagine what the other players were seeing. A player with what could be described as a kids height, ruffling the head of one of their leaders. It was sure a sight to at least make some of them laugh. "Sinon, all you can do is prepare yourself for the upcoming match, with enough preparation, you can win everything." Saffi took out one of shurikens and started to twirl and flick it through her fingers.

"Easy enough for you to say, did you ever even have trouble with anything?" SInon asked without looking down a the little prodigy standing next to her. From all the stories that Saffi had said of her past, it seemed as though she could do no wrong and instantly knew how to do anything, even without prior experience.

"Not really, but that's not the point." Of course, Sinon was getting advice from the only person in Aincrad who didn't have first hand experience with the topic. How in the hell did Saffi never have any issues with anything, it just made absolutely no sense to Sinon. She would at least have some gap in her abilities. "Though I guess I could never make friends, nobody exactly wanted to hang out with pretentious me. Then it seemed that everyone wanted to hang out with popular me. I just didn't care a pushed them all away." Saffi said nonchalantly as she waved away all of her words. At least she could make friends, before Aincrad Sinon didn't really have any friends. "Come on Sinon don't think about the days ahead, or the trials. Just live everyday as it comes with a smile on your face. Maybe then you'll not be as grumpy." Now Saffi tried to raise her frown but to once again no avail.

"Maybe, but not right now, I can't be thinking about stuff like that before this raid." Sinon stated as she pulled out her dual knives. The bow she had carried into almost every other raid would not be used here. Anyone of us could die here, and I want everyone to have the best chance at surviving. Their best chance is to keep a level brain and keep steady in the fight ahead. Then they would be able to fight and survive at the best of their abilities.

"That's dumb Sinon, if I was going to see one of my subordinates die I would rather see a cheerful smile on their face than a stony, callous stare." Saffi said as she tried to readjust Sinon's smile again but to the same effect as last time. Before Sinon could respond and retort Saffi's dumb statement there was a loud scream. The type of scream that could only be attributed to someone dying. Sinon looked up just into time to see a player explode into a flurry of blue shards directly above them. The battle had started.

XXXX

Best Silica is awesome

Hope you all enjoyed her

Next chapter(s) will be up in a week

Have a wonderful week

-Kirk


	210. Frame

March 11, 2024

-Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Silica, Klein, Heathcliff, Ran, Keita, Griselda, Lux, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

"You ready for this?" Ran asked as she readied her sword as if was about be attacked. In reality, Tsubaki doubted that they were anywhere near anyone that would attack her. However, every single player in their squad had their swords and other weapons pulled out. It was common procedure for them by now. If the enemy was somehow able to gain the jump on them, every second would count. A single second in this world could be the difference between life and death.

Tsubaki knew without even looking around that every player behind them and to the side of them would have their weapons at the ready. While it may have been mandated in their squad, everyone else had already take to doing it. For some reason, all of the players seemed to admire Tsubaki and Ran. Personally, she had suspected it to be more out of jealousy of their skills but she was thankful nonetheless.

"You know it." Tsubaki cracked all of her knuckles at once. The result was a cross between painful and soothing. Maybe painful bliss? Tsubaki didn't know, that didn't mean that didn't feel good however, because it did. Half of the reason she had done it was to mock the fact that Ran couldn't do it. Normally Tsubaki wouldn't do it but as her hands were free, she felt as though this was too good of an opportunity to pass up.

"That's not nice." Ran said as she swung her right arm outwards to attack Tsubaki with her sword. Materializing a purple sword out of nowhere, Tsubaki easily blocked with and smirked at her friend.

"Is that the best you've got." Tsubaki mocked. She pushed Ran's sword off of her's than the purple sword dissolved into nothingness. At least, that is what it looked like to the naked eye. To Tsubaki however, it was just stored away in the middle of her back, quick and easy place to retrieve it from and materialize it. It gives her just enough time to think about what she wants after she calls her pet.

"You know that's not the best." Ran stated as she spun her sword back into it's somewhat of a rest position. Or at least what passed for one when it wasn't sheathed. "It's not like I could go right out against you right before a battle like this, you're going to need all of the energy you can get." Ran ruffled the hair of the older hair.

"Like you won't." Tsubaki shoved the hand off of her. Ever since the game had started the mannerisms that made her seem younger than Ran had lost their touch. Back in the real world it was nice to have someone touching her with their flesh and skin rather than plastic gloves and the like. However, since she could now seen the obvious age difference she had grown up slightly.

"That's right." Ran stated as she brought her left hand up to her head a sulated Tsubaki before laughing to herself. As usual everything that Ran did seemed to only make sense to her. However that did not mean Tsubaki's didn't laugh. In fact, she did, quite a lot harder than Ran at that.

"I can't wait to see their faces when I activate Charlotte." Tsubaki said as she patted where her sword would be. Instead of carrying around the extra weapon, Tsubaki had grown confident in her little partner. From what she could tell, Charlotte could never break nor get detached from her. It seemed completely overpower to Tsubaki but then again it was her's so she didn't particularly mind. Ran on the other hand seemed to vehemently like to express that her opinions were of the opposite.

"What, are you going to activate your Charlotte wings and scare all of them to pieces." Ran laughed as she put the imagery of a bunch of the Laughing Coffin members curling in freight of a fourteen year old girl with purple angel wings. While that seemed completely ridiculous it still was amazing to see them do that, even it was in her mind.

"Nah, this is what I am going to do." Tsubaki stated as she materialized her sword once more with added effects. Instead of looking like a dull sword just completely purple, it's wedges slowly undulated, mimicking the sight of a thin flame. If it wasn't completely one color and Tsubaki could change that part to red it every well could look at though it was on fire. Murmurs from the squad behind grew loud as they gazed in awe at the weapon that Tsubaki had just materialized. "Imagine this thing cutting you." Tsubaki stated.

"That would hurt, geez, never knew you were that much of a sadist." Ran stated as walked close enough to Tsubaki so that she could analysis the amazing blade even better. It had taken Tsubaki just over a couple of hours to get this on to look exactly right. Basically it made it she had three hours less of sleep one night. "That is incredible." Ran stated as she finally took her eyes away from the amazing sight of it.

"I told, the Laughing Coffin members are going to fear the name Tsubaki by the end of this raid." Tsubaki stated as she final dematerialized the sword and crossed her hands on her chest. She looked as though she was extremely proud of herself at the given moment. "They would much rather get kill my the Brain, Ran, rather than Hell's Invitation, Tsubaki." Tsubaki clenched her fist in front of her obviously read to crush any foe that step in her path. It also looked as though she was slightly demented, maybe hungry, most likely both.

"Hell's Invitation, don't make me laugh." Ran stated as she had already started laughing. Almost instantly a sarcastic comment arose in Tsubaki's mind but she managed to keep herself from saying it. While they may not be in the most serious of moods at that current moment it, there was a time and a place for that. Tsubaki knew that the time and place for it was not now, nor most likely today.

"Just you watch, after today it'll catch on, no one is expecting a fifteen year old like me to be this powerful." Tsubaki said as she pointed towards the darkness of sky above. "Just you wait Laughing Coffin, You haven't seen anything until you been greeting by hell's doors from Tsubaki, I'll show the true meaning of fear." Tsubaki proclaimed as she grin a devastatingly creepy and sadistic grin. In response to this a couple members of players behind them cheered.

"Look, you're sadistic speech gathered all of your sadistic followers." Run made sure that every s in that sentence was stretched at as much as possible. It made it all the more terrible of Tsubaki. One more shot at her being sadistic and she would feel the true meaning of a flaming sword cutting your insides out. Maybe then she wouldn't call her sadistic. No she would call you insane and killed because she would dead. Tsubaki had to admit she wished that she didn't have to correct what she had thought. That thought shouldn't have so much as grazed her head, yet alone be fleshed out.

"Yeah, well at least I have followers." Tsubaki stuck her tongue out at the younger player, which would obviously insight some sort of rage in her friend. After making a slightly rude hand gesture that Tsubaki had seen way to many times in the game, Ran opened her mouth to speak however she was cut of by a loud scream.

The scream pierced through the joyous scene that Tsubaki and Ran had created. Upon the instant of hearing it, Charlotte had already came out of its hiding spot and transformed into the fire blade. Looking up a head, Tsubaki saw the black sky light up with blue shards like she had never seen before, someone had just died above them. And now chaos would reign down upon them.

XXXX

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

This raid is what I have been building up to for a while now

Next chapter will be out in a few

Have a great day

-Kirk


	211. Fervor

March 11, 2024

-Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Silica, Klein, Heathcliff, Ran, Keita, Griselda, Lux, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

"Hey Kirito." Asuna said as she looked towards Kirito. They had been walking in complete silence for a while, save for what had come from the other squads. Klein was in front of the both of them, accompanied by his second in command. Grasping his sword he inclined his head to tell her he was listening.

"Are you scared about the upcoming battle?" Her voice was hesitant, passive even. This voice was a far cry from the Asuna he had come to know. Yet it seemed not out of the realm of possibility. It seemed as though she was hesitant on something. Kirito did have an inkling on what it could be but he doubted it that he was correct.

"We will win, don't worry. All of our preparation will lend us the victory." Kirito said as he grabbed his sword in pensive thought. Everything had been doing in the game came to this right here. Even though there was still thirty plus floors to go, this was the true battle. They had to win, no matter the cost.

"What makes you so sure?" Asuna asked. Second question in a row, if she continued this than Kirito would think she was trying to understand something. Or rather, if she stopped now then he wouldn't suspect it for much longer.

"All of the strongest people have gathered with us. I don't think they can beat us, even if they have all the advantages, we still have numbers and strength. Plus we have you, I don't think they have anyone like you." Kirito said without turning his head. He was still looking ahead. While his attention may be on the conversation, his mind was on the prize. All that mattered at the moment was getting through the battle.

"Thank you Kirito." Asuna stated sweetly as she withdrew her blade and looked at the ornate craftsmanship. Her blade, like his, had not only the exact same base materials, but also the same maker, Lizbeth. Now with her blade drawn and ready for combat, Asuna looked like the fierce warrior that Kirito had came to know. Laughing Coffin wouldn't know what hit them after she had a go at them. "How long do you think it will be?" Asuna asked once more.

Her voice was a welcome change from the quiet hostility that the eerie silence of a dungeon, it was a nice change. "Quite a while, I can't imagine them being anywhere near here. Even if they were to ambush us I think they would wait until we were much further in." Kirito stated as he surveyed the area. The surrounding areas where still quite still save for the ever moving platforms

"Maybe, but if they are going to try and catch us off guard then they would attack around here, right?" Asuna inquired as also looked around the dungeon, albeit at less of a success. She wasn't exactly the qualitative observer that Kirito was, but a second pair of eyes would never hurt. "This isn't exactly the friendliest of places is it?" Asuna smiled faintly as she looked around the surrounding area. Kirito had to agree, The sense of foreboding death that surrounded them wasn't exactly the friendliest of feelings

"Maybe that's why they choose this place, it suits them doesn't it." Kirito said as he closed his eyes and felt the surrounding area. It felt infinite, as if it stretched in every single direction. "I mean, if I was in a secret guild this would be one of the first places I would choose to set up camp." Kirito stated as he looked at Asuna.

Her face lit up into a smile then quickly turned to another color before Asuna swiftly turned her face to the open road ahead. "That's true." Asuna stated swiftly and hastily. The effect made it seem as though she was trying to divert the attention away from her and back on the conversation but failing miserable. Kirito smiled for a couple of moments before turning back to look ahead.

Klein was still in front of them, talking quite animatedly to his friend. Kirito was honestly quite surprised that they could not hear every word of their conversation. Even so the snippets that Kirito had caught thus far made it seem as though whatever they were talking about was quite interesting. However Kirito was fine with staying back with Asuna. She, while not as lively as Klein's party, was still his best friend by far.

Over the last couple of months he had gotten to know her, while she had done the same with him. Their meals and dungeon together, while not happening everyday, thanks to Asuna's guild duties, were still the highlights of Aincrad so far. Well all except for his time spent with the cats, they would forever be in his memory as one of his best days. However, Asuna easily gave them a run for their money and easily beat them.

It seemed as though even if they didn't have the easiest time conversing at times, mostly Kirito's fault, everything did seemed to flow rather nicely. If anything else, Asuna knew how to make a conversation not seem all too awkward, which Kirito had to admit, if it ever was it was usually his fault. Between his mind being somewhere else and trying not to mess up, he somehow managed to mess up more often than not. Though did give Asuna ample opportunities to laugh, which was always a plus.

Kirito looked over at Asuna. Even though he had seen her many times in her guild outfit, it still looked amazing. It was perfect for her, she was lucky that the two colors were red and white, something like his black wouldn't be the best for her skin color. Now that he was thinking about it, she could probably rock a blue also, maybe even a green. Not that any of that matter, you would still look amazing nonetheless. This made him smile, he was glad he was able to renew his friendship with Asuna.

At first, he was quite frankly afraid. Asuna was the type of person to hold back any punches, she would unleash all of them at the first chance. Yet, for some reason, she did not do that to him. If she had, maybe they wouldn't be the great friends that they are. Thankfully, they were great friends and Kirito wouldn't exchange anything for it. He had thought that coming back to the front lines would grant with new problems. Instead, he was greeted with less which made him wonder what would've happened if he had came back earlier.

Closing his eyes, Kirito smiled. The burden of the upcoming task did not lighten his mood. He was happy beyond anything. Then something made him stop in his tracks. There was something there that was not there the last time he had closed his eyes. An additional force was nearing them, a force that was not much different from their own. However, upon sensing it, Kirito knew that it was something he should be cautious of.

"Kirito I… I." She was trying to get out something but Kirito didn't know nor care what at the moment. All that mattered was that found the source of it. Opening his eyes, Kirito quickly scanned the area above him. Asuna had been directly in front of him, almost touching yet not, but Kirito had still ignored her. There was people directly above them. If Kirito had to guess there was at least sixty of them, and they all had their weapons at the ready.

Kirito opened his mouth to shout warnings to everyone however he was cut of by a blood curdling scream. The only thing that could make a scream such as that was pain, or in more severe causes, death. Along with everyone else, Kirito looked up to see a player shatter into millions of blue shards. It was Laughing Coffin he had sensed, and they were right on top of them.

XXXX

Good ole Kirito

Hope you all enjoyed this installment

Next chapter(s) will be up in a week

Have a wonderful week till then.

-Kirk


	212. Foiled

March 11, 2024

-Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Silica, Klein, Heathcliff, Ran, Keita, Griselda, Lux, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

The clatter of footsteps banged against the artificial ground as the front lines march forward. Through this clatter, Kazuma could hear the others conversing amongst themselves as he stayed forever quiet. Not even his feet were making sound. Instead of his feet hitting the ground in a hard fashion, Kazuma opted to gently roll his feet on the ground, careful not to even make the slightest scuff on the ground.

His left hand was clutched one his spear harder than ever and his right arm felt numb under the weight of the shield. After all, he had been carrying it for the better half of an hour. Most people would've already put it on their back but Kazuma would not, his arm would have to fall be he would. Same went for his spear, he wouldn't put either away until the deed was done.

Standing at the front of the ordinary players, Kazuma made himself seem as tall as possible. While Heathcliff, who was standing next to him, was still quite a bit taller than himself, it still managed to work. Kazuma would make himself seem like someone who would lead or at least face the danger first, and he would have on a brave face while doing so. If he did not then there was no way he would go into this raid. His brother was on the other side with skill on par with some of the strongest bosses and players in the game. While Kazuma did not have that type of skill, he would make up for it with sheer conviction

If presented with the opportunity, he would kill his brother, his twin. No matter what, even if it made delving down to their rank. Even if he had to kill himself to do it, nothing would stop him. Kazuma had made up his mind long ago, at the moment it became known that he was a member of Laughing Coffin, Kazuma vowed to kill his brother. To avenge those who had fallen to his blade, to kill the serial killer that had changed soo many lives for the worst.

He would feel no remorse for the life that he had slain, his brother had died long ago to him, or so it felt. These months in the game felt like the longest and loneliest days he had ever had to go through. Nothing could compare to the sense of hollowness he had felt over the duration of this game, the death game.

This was the only reason he was still alive at the moment. To get revenge for those who had fallen, Kazuma would do anything. Nothing was too extreme for this task, nor was anything too dangerous. The disdain that he had towards his so called brother could not be explained by words. Suffice it to say, Kazuma did not consider that him and Zack, as he went by were still brothers. That was not the brother he had grown up with.

His brother was a lot more than different than he was today, or at least, he wasn't a serial killer. He was quite possibly one of the nicest people that Kazuma had ever known. All that happened to him was that he had been taken to make some terrible decisions. These decisions often had some catastrophic results, often affect himself and the people around him greatly. Yet, he wasn't someone to be avoided, he was one of the best of people. However, the person that had taken his brother's spot was someone entirely different. Never in his life would he ever thought that his brother would ever have killed someone nor did he think that he, himself would kill someone.

Kazuma stood at the front of the middle group with both his spear and shield held up as they had often been. He would without a doubt kill Zack, everything he had done in Aincrad so far had been for the goal of taking out all killers. Now that his own blood had became on, he would also be subjected to them same fate if not worse. If Kazuma ever met face to face with Zack he would make the battle as painful as possible for Zack, and when he won, Kazuma would torture him to death for everything he had done.

The blood coursed to his hand as he clenched his spear even harder. His anger for Zack was something that went beyond all bounds, most people would say it wasn't justified, however every inch of what he felt said it was, and more. Kazuma felt his face constrict as he thought more and more of what his brother had done. Even if he was his brother, he would kill him, there would no hesitation, today, he would breathe his last breath.

Inhaling and exhaling, Kazuma took a deep breath. This was in an attempt to calm himself. If he stayed at his current state of complete anger he would no doubt end up doing something bad. Acting only on emotion would get him killed, not only that, it could get others killed. Kazuma closed his eyes as the front line players continued to march on. Now, at this moment he would to regain his composure. At any time Laughing Coffin could pull off a surprise attack and kill of them. They couldn't let that happen.

Laughing Coffin was full of a bunch of killers. They weren't above using backhanded topic to kill their targets and especially when they were going to be attack, their sneak tactics would be at their maximum. Killers like them had no pride, they had no mortals, there was no trick they wouldn't use. From sacrificing one of their own members to get another kill to laying their weapons down to get a surprise attack, Laughing Coffin would pull off all of the stops to win.

With superior skill and players, the front line had the numerical advantage, however Laughing Coffin was nothing to sneeze at. Kazuma knew that Laughing Coffin even with the lesser skill and players, Laughing Coffin could still easily kill all of them. That means that all they needed was the surprise attack to win. Kazuma never would let them have the chance. Looking up around the edges Kazuma instantly found players.

All around them were a bunch of presumably Laughing Coffin members, all with weapons drawn. However, Kazuma was instantly taken off guard by a dual happening up there, or rather a killing that happened. What intrigued and captured his attention was that one of the players was Zack and he was on the winning side.

Kazuma watched as Zack easily caught the player off guard and disarmed him before launching him into the air. All of the players in Laughing Coffin and some of the characters in the front lines looked towards the black sky above as the player shattered into a blue flurry from above. Dead in one strike, Zack was just as lethal as the stories had made him out to be, maybe even more.

All of the players, himself included, gulped at the display of skill that they had just witnessed. If that was what they were dealing with then all of Kazuma fantasies of torturing zack were null and void. Zack would most likely get a swift kill because of his sheer skill. There was no way they would keep him alive while other players ran around.

Would they even be able to take on Laughing Coffin and win? How many of them would die in the process? Would it be best if they feld now? If they did that how many of them would die? Kazuma could hear all of these questions go through all of his companions, but he only had one himself, Why did Zack just do that?

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Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter will be out in a few

Raid against Laughing Coffin is about to officially start

Have a great day

-Kirk


	213. Fraction

March 11, 2024

-Zaza and Zack-

Spear in both of his hands, right over left, Zack grinned towards his leader across the open area. In between them was a gap that the floating platforms never entered for some reason. This was most likely the permanent entrance through the front lines could've used a variety of entrances. They had chosen the easiest one for the Laughing Coffin to ambush them at. Truth be told, they had actually been somewhat smart and had not exactly chosen the easiest one, but they walked past it so it was their loss.

Across the gap was Zaza, commanding the other half of Laughing Coffin. On his face was an incredibly smug and hungry look. Like the rest of laughing Coffin he was out for blood, but for him this was much more than that. He was out to show everyone that he was the strongest of Laughing Coffin, that what Zack could do was nothing compared to what he was to do. Zaza was going to try and kill some of the strongest players in the front lines.

Zack knelt down on to the ground and felt the ground. While he couldn't feel the vibrations of footsteps from the front lines all the way up here, he could feel everyone behind him. Most of the players weren't moving all that fast, taking a few steps at a time, however others, or in particular one person, was moving towards him.

The footsteps were extremely heavy, as if an entire army was moving in step towards. Yet they were fast, incredibly well paced and in rhythm. Whoever was moving towards him was no doubt a high level player. No one other than a high level player could have walked with such power and grace at the same time. It took an enormous amount of skill to do so. Zack could only think of one person who had that power on this side of the entrance.

"How have you been Gai?" Zack asked without even turning around to see if his suspicions were correct. They were without a doubt correct, he had no doubt in his mind or body against these thoughts.

"Not too bad, what about yourself?" Gai asked as he walked up and stood next to Zack. He was using his longsword as a cane at the current moment. Gai was an incredibly well built player, more so than himself. Easily towering over Zack, his shoulders were even broader and he even managed to be quite quick. Overall he was built to be agile yet powerful, a dangerous combination.

"Ready to get as many kills as I did last time." Zack smirked back as he spun his spear in his left hand. This was something he did in his spare time. It increased his finger agility and his ability to switch from back to front end. That was a skill that he liked to utilise often, it made his spear even more dangerous than it had already been, if that was even possible.

"Ah, I wish I could have been in Laughing Coffin when that happened, that must've been fun." Gai stated with enthusiasm has he stopped leaning on his sword and brought it into the upright position. He then proceed to make a couple of swings with his sword as if he was slashing and killing people.

"Trust me, you wouldn't, I didn't even know how I managed to get out of there without a scratch." Zack stated as he ruffled his own hair. The battle was entirely too chaotic to be able to tell what was going on at the time. Zack doubted that anyone would be able to replicate much less himself. However, if anyone was going to try it was going to be the red player standing right next to him. This killer did not know when to stop.

"Then watch me today, I'll wipe the floor with them." Gai stated as he banged his hand against the side of his long sword. It was quite ornate, made by the Laughing Coffin blacksmith himself. If Zack had to say, it was one of the best creations be him to date. It was strong and sturdy yet not too heavy so it could be swung around easily. Perfect for someone like Gai. It made him a true menace on the battlefield.

"I'll be prepared for that then." Zack stated as he looked down at his weapon. Today would be the day he would finally get blood on it. After today it would be stained with blood and would probably never kill another life. Yet it would probably have an honorable existence, unlike the rest of his weapons.

"You better not get in my way, I want to beat your total." Gai smirked as he swung his blade uncomfortably close to Zack's neck. Zack didn't so much as flinch, in fact he smirked back at him. "Who knows maybe I'll double it." Gai swung his blade on to his shoulder. With his blade on his shoulder and an incredibly smug look on his face, Gai left without so much as a goodbye.

Zack looked at Gai as he left him. The red player walked with confidence that Zack had never known, his head held higher and face swung. That was a player who knew that he was able to do anything and that know one could so much as match up to him. Or rather thought it, because he couldn't be more wrong. Like everyone else, Zack knew that they were about to take on the best of the best, this would be an incredibly hard battle for Laughing Coffin and they didn't even know the half of it.

However, Zack knew that if one person could be able to take on the best of the best, it was most likely Gai. The stories he had heard from other members of Laughing Coffin were quite interesting and disturbing. Somehow he was able to move like the wind and hit with the force of a thousand waves. He was the type of killer that had no restraint and would do anything for another kill. Gai was a bloodthirsty killer, there was no doubt about it. How would he…-

Then all of his thought was cut off in a moment. There was some footsteps to be heard. Or rather there was quite a few footsteps, maybe even two hundred. It was the front lines, they were about to pass through their position, they were about to be ambushed. Zack could sense the smiles start to form on all of the other player's faces as they prepared for battle.

Zack stood there in shock for a moment. Would he be able to follow through? Everything he had done was all for this moment. Would he be able to do what he had thought out so many times? Trying to move, Zack realised that his entire body was still, he had frozen in shock. Now of all times, Zack mentally cursed himself. Closing his eyes, Zack prayed to the god he had never done before then started to move.

If only Gai was still close to him, but no matter he still needed to do what had to be done. With his spear in his left hand, Zack pounced on the closest player, an axe user. He didn't particularly know this axe player but he was getting the easy way out compared to everyone else. Starting the duel, Zack slammed the blunt side of his spear into the player's head, startling him.

Instantly, the axe user regained his composure and counter attack with a downwards vertical. Zack smiled, he had predicted this. The countermeasure to this was almost to easy, Zack easily made his spear horizontal and got it under the head of the axe. Watching his opponents eyes widen, Zack ripped the axe out of his hands with his spear. Zack performed a series of jabs and kicks before launching him up into the air. Once the player was almost near the ground, Zack swung his spear in an underhand motion, bisecting the player's body with his spear as he launched him again. However this time he went over the opening, where his data could alert everyone else of the impending doom. The battle of a lifetime had started.

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You'll ready for this

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter(s) will be out in a week

Have a wonderful week

-Kirk


	214. Feud

March 11, 2024

-Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Silica, Klein, Heathcliff, Ran, Keita, Griselda, Zaza, Zack, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

In an instant Zack turned around with his spear held in a defensive position horizontally. Unlike almost all of the other players, Zack didn't take time and watch the after effects of what he just done. He knew that the player that he just bisected was doomed to exploding into a million on blue crystals, showering down onto the front line players below. While he would have liked to see the display of excellence that was the player dying, Zack had more problems to deal with.

"I knew it." A sword slammed against his spear with amazing strength. It was Gai, just as he had suspected. "You were always going to betray us, weren't you?" Gai asked rhetorically as he pushed his sword even harder against Zack. Even with all of the training and skill that he had, Zack barely was able to hold his sword back.

"Really, Was I that transparent?" Zack asked as he knees started to buckle. He couldn't stay here for long. Soon he would his strength would betray him and be pushed off the edge or his spear break under the pressure. Neither would leave him alive, nor did he want them to happen. Risking his stability, Zack kicked Gai's knee cap, finally releasing some of the pressure against his spear. Zack then pushed Gai's sword off his weapon and hit Gai's other kneecap. Using the opening that he had just created, Zack ran away from Gai and as far away from the edge as he could.

"Only slightly." Gai grinned as he sprinted at Zack. Then as he approached Zack, he jumped upwards and descended into a downwards slam with his sword leading. Thankfully, Gai usually lead with his sword and not with his brain. This was Gai's only fault, and Zack was going to use it too the maximum. Easily, Zack created some distance between and readied his weapon, only to have to use it instantly.

Another player attacked him the instant he stopped to ready himself. Zack sidestepped the enormous axe that had tried to come down on him. The player was easily considered a novice player and Zack instantly took advantage of that. His stance was easily full of holes, and Zack didn't have a hard time choosing one. With an easy flick of the wrist, Zack's five pronged spear ripped through the player's chest and killed him instantly. Then he swung around with his spear outstretched.

"You're a natural." It was Gai once again. He had just ducked underneath Zack's spear. "No wonder Zaza took such a liking to you." Gai smirked as he ran Zack once again. Instead of bracing himself for impact like last time, Zack started to run backwards. Then he ducked as he felt a rush of air hit his neck. Then sword cut off some of his hair from the top of his head.

"Shit."

Zack unleashed all of the skills and power that he had at the player all at once. If this player was alive when Gai attacked him, then he was dead, there was no chance for him. And even with all of the slashes, jabs, swings, stabs and twists, Zack couldn't get past the player's buckler. All Zack managed to do to the player was implant a shallow cut in his cheek, then Gai attacked him.

Only two attacks in Gai had landed a deep cut through Zack's right forearm almost cutting Zack's health in half. Zack instantly dropped to the ground, avoiding any of the attacks from either of the players. Then he pushed off the ground and into the air, landing behind the player with the buckler. Without even turning around, Zack stabbed the player through the back killing him instantly. Then he spun around with his spear protecting his front.

"And surprisingly resourceful." Gai stated as his sword slammed into his spear, right where his left hand was. Zack immediately jumped backwards. His hand felt as though it was on fire and his forearm felt as though it should be about ready to fall off. Transferring his spear to his right hand, Zack stood as resolute as ever, even if he was banged up.

Gai sprinted at Zack dragging his long sword on the ground until he reached within striking distance of Zack. However, Zack had other plans. Using the hand that felt like it should've fallen off already, Zack hit Gai straight in the face, pushing him backwards. If it was the real world then he would have broken his nose. Then Zack immediately transferred into a flurry of attacks that ended in a kick that launched him down towards the front line players.

Weakly, Zack turned around, barely able to keep himself from falling, Zack used his spear to keep himself upright. Up ahead of him was another player running at him spear outstretched. Zack held his resolutely once more and waited for the player to get closer. Once he was just outside of his attack range, Zack prepared to attack. Faster than he had ever attack before, Zack's spear went through the player's side, killing him before he had even known the spear had pierced his skin.

"Hello Zack." It was Zaza, he had alright gotten to where Zack had been. Now his time was over, Zaza would strike him down in an instant. "Laughing Coffin!, Commence attacks!" Zaza yelled with his estoc in the air. If it had been chaos before, compared to now it was a bunch a grade schoolers walking in a single file line. At least now the front lines weren't going to get surprised attacked and that's all that mattered.

"It's been a while Zaza, you ready for this?" Zack asked as he ready his spear. He already knew the answer to this and so did Zaza but they still had to show that Zack was going down here. Until then Zack would give his all to keep Zaza occupied for as long as possible.

"We all know the answer to that question." Zaza laughed as he sprinted at Zack. Preparing for the worst, Zack slowly started to back towards the edge with his spear held at the ready. He couldn't deflect all of Zaza's attacks but he could at least stop all of the lethal attacks. This was going to be the duel of his life, and he was giving it his all.

Unfortunately for Zack, his all didn't do much of anything. He made have been able to hold his own if he was not tired however, he was anything but that. The couple of players and Gai that he had faced drained all of his energy quite quickly. And now he was facing the strongest player he had ever face, without the strength that he needed. In a couple of moments Zack had been pushed to the edge of the platform with a ton of minor scrapes on his arms and legs.

"You're quite strong, I never would have expected you to hold me back for this long." Zack thrusted his spear at Zaza as he spoke. Easily, Zaza hit his spear up and out of his hand with just a slight swing. "But it looks like you're done." Zaza swung his sword at Zack but it never made a lethal strike.

"You'll have to try harder than that." Zack laughed as he looked at Zaza's blade. Instead of going through his torso, it went through his hand, Zack had caught the blade with his hand. A grunt of pain issued from Zack's mouth. He was in a ton of pain and it was almost the end for him. However, Zaza's next action took an unexpected turn. Right after the last word came out of Zack's mouth, Zaza punched Zack straight off the platform and onto the one below.

Pain exploded across the side that he had landed on. He felt as though he was going to die in an instant but somehow was staying on the edge of life. And yet he had somehow managed to survive, with just a sliver of HP Zack stood up and observed the area around him. It was complete and utter chaos. Everyone around him was fighting for their life while he had just finished it. But for everyone else, the duels of their life had just began.

XXXX

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Zack was fun to write here

Next chapter will be up in a few

Have a wonderful day

-Kirk


	215. Force

March 11, 2024

-Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Silica, Klein, Heathcliff, Ran, Keita, Griselda, Zaza, Zack, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

All of the front line players watched as another player fell off the platforms from above. However instead of the player dying in mid air, the player landing on both of his feet, albeit rather hard. Every single one of the front lines players knew who this player was, it was Gai. While none of them had actually meet him before, they had all have been taught of who he was. This was the last important person that the had to catch. Trained by Zaza himself, Gai was just a lethal dangerous on the battlefield, and they were just about to learn how much.

"Come at me." Gai yelled at the top his lungs as he swung his sword in a wide arc above his head. He was baiting them, whoever was going to go at him was going to get killed in one shot. Charlotte began to take form as Tsubaki started to analyze him. It would be one of the strongest members that had to take him down and she had the slight inclination that it would end up being her.

Two players emerged from the crowd immediately and attacked him. They both looked like samurai and it was obvious to everyone what guild they were about of. They were apart of Klein's guild, the name at the moment escaped her but both of them were about to get royally screwed. Tsubaki gripped the purple short sword that had finally decided what it wanted to be, she would not let it happen. However the was one small problem, they were all the way on the other side of the platform.

As Tsubaki took off at the confrontation she watched the two players get brutally and efficiently killed. One of them was easily disarmed and his axe was used to behead the other player. Then he got stabbed straight through the forehead, dying instantly. Both of them dissolved into a swarm of blue crystals as he advanced on all of the other players.

Muttering of fears echoed throughout the players as each one prepared themselves to get attack by the red player. Tsubaki was one of the very few that actually hadn't frozen. An even smaller number of them were going to face the threat of Gai. Most of the players that had not frozen up stayed back to get everyone back. However Tsubaki was not the first player to reach Gai, her competition was faster than her. Actually her competition was faster than everyone.

Asuna tore through the crowd and attacked Gai directly, she hadn't taken any time to think over a game plan, she was on impulse. Instinctively, Tsubaki sped up. There was no way that Asuna was going to hold for long, especially since he had countered her first attacks. If the element of surprise wasn't going to get her there, then nothing would. It would be up to Tsubaki next.

To Asuna's credit, she did last a lot longer than Tsubaki had thought she would but the moment she went on defense, she had lost. While Asuna had probably known this she fought Gai until he finally got an extremely well placed strike on her rapier which knocked her back and into the air. Thankfully, his strike gave her some distance so Gai wasn't able to capitalize on it. Now it was Tsubaki's turn. Gripping her shape shifting sword harder than ever, Tsubaki approached the player killer.

"Hello." Tsubaki stated as she slowly walked towards Gai. His face instantly turned into a smirk as he once again got into his stance, long sword outfront, displaying it's incredible length.

"Nice pink hair." Gai stated as he launched himself at Tsubaki with amazing speed. If Tsubaki had not just seen him attack she would've underestimated his speed. His physical stature made it seem that he would be much slower with powerful attacks. However his speed while definitely less than his attack, was still able to hold it's own. Brandishing her sword, Tsubaki met him in the middle, staggering his assault.

In the second their blades hit, Tsubaki faded off to the side. Tsubaki knew that she wasn't going to be able to face him in a battle head on, so facing him there would be a mistake. Instead she would have to mess up his rhythm and redirect all of his attacks, wear him down before he could get in a good hit.

"You're smart, what's with the front lines and teenage girls any was, it seems like all of the good players are girls?" He asked nonchalantly as he ran at Tsubaki again but this time he slowed down once he got closer. Tsubaki payed no mind to his question, it wasn't said for any other reason than to try and trip her up, that's all that words were in a dual anyways.

After dodging and maneuvering around his attacks a couple of times, Tsubaki backed off and Gai didn't follow. This gave Tsubaki ample time to analyze the events that had just unfolded in front of him. While Tsubaki had expected this, she had hoped it to not be the case. It seemed as though Gai was incredibly well versed in dueling, just as much as herself and Ran. Even in that short confrontation, he was changing his swordplay to fight the current situation. However, his sword play was incredibly easy, Tsubaki had already figured out who to attempt and counter it.

"You're one hell of a teenager." Gai stated as he sprinted at Tsubaki at full speed. In contrast to last time he was holding nothing back at all. Even in his first attack he was holding something back, albeit if it wasn't much, however now he was pushing his body to the limit. Tsubaki knew that so much as trying to mess him up would result in her taking some massive damage, so at the last second she dodged leftwards.

Gai easily spun around with his sword outstretched. It hit Charlotte with enough force that Tsubaki felt her bones vibrate from the hit. Even though it was by no means a direct hit, his indirect his were something else. Turing her sword into a spear, Tsubaki launched her counter offensive. Trying her hardest, she attempted to attack him with both ends of the spear. She needed to simulate a simultaneous attack.

All that Tsubaki had figured out from her one real conformation and Asuna's duel against him was that he needed to be put of the defensive. From what Tsubaki could tell, Gai liked to lean his body into his attacks, thus giving his attacks more power behind them. This was a quite a good idea if you're on the offensive but while on defense it was the end of you, Tsubaki hoped that it would be so for Gai. If not she did not know what to do.

Unfortunately for Tsubaki, his attacking still changed once again and this time it was a ton more defensive than before. Know he had both of his hands on his handle and somehow his reaction time and defensive hold was a lot stronger. He had been definitely been taught well by Zaza. Tsubaki doubted that her and Ran could hold a candle to just how abundantly strong he was.

Tsubaki continued to more or less ram her spear at Gai until it seemed as though it had became pointless. Then she saw Gai build up into an intensive attack. At least if he was insanely strong he had a tell when one of his incredibly strong strikes were coming in. Upon seeing this, Tsubaki attacked in haste and had Charlotte turn from a spear to a buckler. However this was the wrong idea, in fact a spear would've been better.

The power of Gai's attacked went straight through the spear and launched Tsubaki into the air and off the edge of the platform into and endless pit of darkness. Worst part was, the were absolutely no platforms down below, they had been at the bottom level.

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Well one down, right

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter(s) will be up in a week

Have a great week till then

-Kirk


	216. Feather

March 11, 2024

-Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Silica, Klein, Heathcliff, Ran, Keita, Griselda, Zaza, Zack, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

Watching the pink haired girl blown straight off of the platform, Klein immediately jumped into action. That player had already taken out two people held dear to him and just blown a girl into a pit of death, there was no way he could stay still now. Everything that he was compelled him to leap into action and take him on. Gripping the handle of his katana, Klein rushed at the player killer.

"And the next challenger approaches, how long until this one dies?" Gai asked rhetorically as he brandished his long sword at Klein. His face had an incredibly long grin on it, as if he mocking the entire front lines. Almost immediately Klein's face harden. How could he be soo psychotic, what made him become this way? However that thought left Klein's as quickly as it had appeared. None of that mattered, all that mattered was taking him down, and fast. The more time he had free, the more people he would kill.

"You should be asking yourself that." Klein said as he pointed the end of his katana at Gai. Maybe if he showed that he wasn't afraid of his mockery than he could somehow make it so he had some sort of advantage. This didn't go anywhere near to plan, instead Gai's grin grew even larger than it had been before, if that was even possible.

"I like you, I'll enjoyed sinking my blade through your body." And with that Gai pounced on Klein, even though he had been the one sprinting. In an instant he was on top of Klein, swinging his sword with a massive amount of weight against Klein's katana.

Klein had never faced someone with this skill level, it was near impossible to match, almost as if he wasn't even human even more. Only after trading a couple of blows was it apparent to Klein that he couldn't even phase this player, much less present himself as a worthy adversary. Nevertheless, Klein preserved. He would hold him off another player came to take him on or died trying.

The next attacked from Gai hit the ground with a deafening thud. If he had defended it with his katana, then he would've been screwed. It had been meant to blow past any defense that Klein would have put up with ease. Klein jumped back to avoid whatever the backlash from the next attack was. And this was a great play on Klein's part as the attack would've at the ever least taken off Klein's legs. At the most, he would have been dead, before he had even released that the blade had went through him.

"Nice try, but now it's time for you to die." Gai said as he steadied his blade next to his body. Then he took off on a sprint at Klein, holding absolutely nothing back. While it was not as fast as someone like Asuna, it still had speed and he reached Klein faster than anyone thought he would. Thankfully, Klein had prepared for the unexpected and held his blade out to intercept Gai's. That is exactly what it had done and yet this defense did nearly nothing. Gai's target had not been to disarm Klein or go straight through his sword. His target had been to hit Klein directly, and that was what he had done.

Directly in the chest, Gai had struck Klein with the base off his foot and kicked him quite a few meters away. The pain of this made Klein let go his weapon before he had even hit the ground the first time. After the fourth time it felt as though he was done and after the seventh he finally stopped bouncing on the ground. Then he heard a bunch of thuds hit the ground, the rest of Laughing Coffin had arrived.

"Rally Laughing Coffin! DESTROY THEM ALL!" Gai yelled at the top of his lungs as he thrusted his sword into the air. All of the other members of Laughing Coffin cheered and followed in suit. The fifty or so players that had fallen onto the platform started to attack all of the front line members.

"Prepare yourself Klein, ready to die?" Gai asked as he took off at Klein once again, however this time his path was intercepted by one of his friends, a member of Fuurinkazan. Before Klein had even a chance to tell his member that it was not worth it, Gai had condemned him to death. Swinging his sword under the player's axe, Gai had easily disarmed him then he went in for the kill. With absolutely no resistance, Gai tore through the player's neck beheading him in an instant.

"Honorable death yet unnoticeable in the least, at least your death will be satisfying." Gai mocked as he brandished his sword and started his sprint at Klein but he didn't get far at all before the next challenger stopped him in his tracks. From far away it had looked like a purple angel had come out of the bottomless pit but once it swung down at Gai it was a different story. It was Tsubaki, she hadn't died.

Taking him off guard, Tsubaki used on of her angel wings to knock Gai's long sword out of his hand and the other one strike him just a tiny bit afterwards. With the forwarding of losing hold of his sword, Gai ducked underneath the other wing and long jumped for a sword that was laying on the ground. It was Klein's katana the one he had lost not moment's ago and now his opposition was using it.

The purple disappeared off of Tsubaki's back to be replaced by a sword. She rushed at Gai, not expecting him to have a sword, the fact that he did caught her off guard. Gai easily pushed he slash of to the right and as she was running past him, cut her ankle with ease. It was barely more than a scratch but it made Tsubaki's next couple of actions much more rash than they would have been. This in turn gave Gai the advantage, which he exploited to the fullest.

In an instant, the purple wings that had been on her back returned and the purple sword had disappeared. Tsubaki swung around in a three sixty motion with both of he wings outstretched hoping to catch Gai with one of them. This tactic did not succeed in the slightest, instead, Gai ducked underneath it easily and prepared for his next attack. Releasing this, Tsubaki flew up into the air but not before Gai got his attack in. Using a wide arc, Gai cut off both of Tsubaki's feet, causing her to scream and fly in the air faster than before, she wasn't going to land any time soon.

"Now, where were we?" Gai asked as he turned his attention towards Klein and started to walk slowly towards him. Yet again he was stopped by another person but this time Gai didn't care all that much. Zack had fallen out of the sky and land right in front of Klein in a heap of mess. His spear was nowhere to be seen and he had small cuts up and down his body. Whoever he had been dueling had obviously done more than enough to kill him. It was amazing that he was still alive even with the fall that he had just taken.

"Zack, pleasure to met you again so soon, this time I won't hold back anything, and you defenseless, will kneel before me until I end you're suffering with my blade going through your neck." Gai ran his hand along side the flat side of Klein's katana. "Be prepared for the most painful end you could imagine because I, Gai will give it you." Gai declared as he pointed Klein's katana directly at Zack. They would die here, wouldn't they?

XXXX

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Gai is fun to write

Next chapter will be up in a few

Have a wonderful day

-Kirk


	217. Furrow

March 11, 2024

-Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Silica, Klein, Heathcliff, Ran, Keita, Griselda, Zaza, Zack, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

Before he even knew what had just had happen, a large gong noise reverberated throughout the dueling players. To Kazuma it felt as though the sound had tore throughout his skin and had separated all of his hairs. Although, to be fair he was just one of the two players to make the sound. It had been Gai's long sword slamming into Kazuma's shield at full force that had produced it.

Multiple other things happen as a result of this clash of metal. The first was that almost everybody had at least had an eye on them, so of the players had even stopped what they were doing to watch it. Secondly, Kazuma's knees buckled underneath the pressure of Gai's strength against his own. And now his knees hurt like no other. Lastly, he heard a faint voice of thanks come from behind him, it was his brother.

"You somehow managed to keep your hold against, I commend you not many would be able to do so." Gai stated as he back off, giving a bit off time for Kazuma to get back on his feet and not in such a terrible situation. "Get out of the way and I won't kill you, stay here and brother's will die in arms." Gai declared as he thrusted his sword outwards, pointing at Kazuma.

"Then my fate is sealed." Kazuma said after some hesitation. This turn of events was completely not how he had expected it but it was right to stand at Zack's side. Even if the two of them hadn't been the best of brothers, they were brothers once and he had to honor that. Not matter the consequence of the situation, he would stand by his side. Putting all of altercations aside, Kazuma was prepared to put his life on the line for his brother.

"You're an idiot." Gai stated plainly as he pulled back his sword. Almost instantly Kazuma loosened up, if he was going to win, dodging would be the way to go. Placing one foot behind the other, Kazuma was prepared to dodge either way when Gai started his attack. In front of him Gai started back and forth and between his fingers, he was building up some massive momentum. Kazuma was left with a split second decision, should he attack gai and stop his momentum and risk getting baited into a trap or face whatever the momentum was leading to.

Before Kazuma could make a decision however, Gai activated a sword skill. With the insane amount of momentum he had just built up along with the sword skill, Gai took into the air with an amazing amount of speed. At the apex of his flight, Gai grabbed onto his long sword with both of his hands and started his descent. Surprisingly, his descent was faster than his accent as the power and gravitational pull that was behind it.

Kazuma instantly got out of the way of that attack. He wasn't even sure that his shield could hold up with an attack like that, much less his strength. Gai hit the ground with an incredible amount of force. Enough so that the entire platform shook and everyone he to spend a moment balancing themselves. This in fact took Kazuma off his feet for a second, and he had to get his feet firmly on the ground once more.

That second was all that Gai had needed to gain the advantage. On the instant he had hit the ground, Gai leaped towards Kazuma with amazing control of direction. This force Kazuma to be on the defensive. He couldn't dodge in time so instead he took the hit full on then let pass of to his left. Since it had not hit the center of his shield he was okay but only just. Gai's onslaught had only just begun. Whatever to come next was certainly going to hurt a lot more than the indirect hit.

As he passed behind Kazuma, Gai swung his sword at him, getting a little bit of a scrape on Kazuma's back. It wouldn't be enough to draw blood in the real world but enough for it to be felt, if only just.

Kazuma whipped around in response and tried to attack Gai with a one eighty spear motion but failed miserably. He had underestimated how fast Gai was and even before he had attacked, Gai was in the position to defend. Without so much as trying, Gai knocked the spear away and started an attack of his own, albeit a short one.

The attack was a short linear aimed at the top of Kazuma's shoulder, which did hit it's intended mark. Gai would have liked to hit somewhere more direct but with a short attack he couldn't get past Kazuma's shield. That would take some more thinking and more time. Pain shot through Kazuma's body as he rolled underneath Gai's outstretched arm. This escape route was all that his shoulder had given him

"My sword likes your flesh, how happy do you think it will be once it gets a direct shot?" Gai asked as he dragged his finger along the outline his sword. It was ripe with the pixels it had just cut out of Kazuma's shoulder. This gave Kazuma barely enough time to get to his feet before Gai went on his rampage of attacks once more.

For the second time, Kazuma had been unable to move thanks to Gai being too fast for him. Instead of dodging out of the way, he was relegated to doing something that he really didn't want to do, take the strike head on. If it was going to be anything like last time, it would spell the end for Kazuma in quite a painful way. Both of his knees could still feel the bang against the platform they had not too long ago.

Instead of buckling under the pressure of Gai's sword this time, Kazuma had done something that was way more devastating. Thanks to Gai's attack being drastically different from last time, Kazuma had a drastically different result. Unlike last time where he got pushed into the ground, Kazuma was thrown off of it and into the air. The sheer power of Gai's attack was enough to throw Kazuma into the air through his shield.

With a lot more force than Kazuma would've liked, he hit the ground with a slam. Both his shield and spear flew off in other directions upon the impact. And now he was left helpless on the ground much like how his brother was behind him just moments ago. Gai was way more than a match for him. Even through all of the exhaustion that he had already gone through, Gai still had the advantage in every single way possible.

"Looks like this little charade is done." Gai stated as he ran at Kazuma at his top speed, holding absolutely nothing back. His long sword was over his head, it would be a painful one hit kill. Much better than what his brother was going to get. Attempting to trying to get onto his feet, Kazuma found that he lack much of any air and strength to do so. Getting slammed against the ground had not been good for that. So he prepared for death.

The moment he thought the blade was going to go through his body the sound of yet another blade tearing through flesh filled Kazuma's ears. In front of him, Gai was standing there with a wound the he certainly didn't have before. In his side was a mark that looked as though a short blade had just impaled him and his his left arm was a dagger. Whoever's that was had just saved him from certain death.

XXXX

Just barely not dead

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter(s) will be up in a week

Have a wonderful week till then

-Kirk


	218. Funct

March 11, 2024

-Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Silica, Klein, Heathcliff, Ran, Keita, Griselda, Zaza, Zack, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

"You ready?" Saffi asked as her shurikens followed in suit. Unlike Sinon's which had caught Gai off guard, Saffi's had easily been deflected.

"I'm the one who threw the daggers." Sinon smirked as she pulled out two more knives. Now it was time for them to take them on Gai, together. Sinon lunged at Gai along with Saffi. They could take him on, as long as they stick to the plan.

Over the couple of battles they had seen Gai in thus far, one thing had become super apparent to Sinon. Even though Gai was incredibly strong, he couldn't take on two people, especially two that extremely skilled and ranged. All Sinon and Saffi had to do now was stay out of his range and he keep him off of everyone else. Eventually, he will falter and then he will fall and then he will die.

At the same time and distance away from Gai, the both of them threw their respective weapons at him. As predicted, instead of dodging Gai took a much more dangerous route and both of them out of the air then preceded to go after Sinon. Luckily, they had predicted this turn of events also. Without a doubt Gai was going to focus all of his strength on one of them, while they had no idea who it would be, they knew it was going to happen. After all Gai taking on both of them at the same time successfully was not possible, he wouldn't even get close.

Not even hesitating for a second, Sinon lunged forward towards Gai. Nothing would be gained from running away, both of them had agreed on that. They would have to face on while the other attacked from behind. While it would feel like a one versus one it wouldn't be as Saffi would provide her with ample opportunity to be ahead of Gai. That was all that was needed, as long as she was faster than him, she would win.

Sinon ran straight at Gai and just before the point at which the would crash into each she faded left. On the other hand Gai had went into a massive downwards vertical which only narrowly avoided Sinon. Normally he would have sweeped it to the side to catch them in their tracks but Sinon had prevented it. She had purposely been as close to the blade as possible and on it's descent, her knife and Gai's sword scraped against each other. While running, Sinon kept her blade and Gai's sword touching for as long as she could, until he backed off. If she had continued then she would have cut of gai's fingers which was probably undesirable for Gai.

However with all of the momentum he gained, Gai spun around attempting to slam is blade straight through Sinon. Preparing this, Sinon threw the dagger that was in her left hand at him then grasp the other one with two hands. This was her lifeline if Gai's attack went through, which she doubt it would.

As she had predicted, a shuriken from Saffi soured over to Gai as Sinon's knife left her hand. Easily, Gai punched Sinon's knife out of the air but Saffi's shuriken caught him off guard. Saffi had been incredibly smart in where she had thrown it. She knew that Sinon could keep Gai off her for long enough she went for a devastating blow. Just below his peripheral vision, Saffi's shuriken injected itself into his right leg, instantly dealing quite the below. That in addition to the knife that Sinon had already put on his right side made him even more weak.

Using the the weakness that Saffi had just given her, Sinon dived into Gai's blade. Almost instantly his hand unclenched and she disarmed him rather easily, a lot easier than she had been expecting. Then she felt and kick launch her vertically up into the air and another bring her straight down, knocking the air straight out of Sinon in an instant. Sinon felt the ground shake a tiny bit as he slammed his foot down onto his sword which flipped itself into the air and back into her hands.

Sinon tried to get herself up immediately but her strength was not where she had wanted so she rolled instead. Right where her head would've been Gai's sword landed with an incredibly loud thud, if her head had been there she would've been dead without a doubt. Instead of using his sword once more, Gai went for a much faster attack. He punched Sinon straight in the gut. Some of her spit flew into the air as she materialized two more daggers. She plunged them both into Gai's arm then lifted his arm up.

Faster than she knew she could go, Sinon rolled herself onto her stomach and pushed up with both of her hands. She was back on her feet faster than she would've ever thought. Immediately she ran away from Gai until she felt as though she had gain enough distance between the two. Plus she couldn't hear his footsteps echoing behind hers. On the base of her heel, Sinon spun back around to look at Gai. While she was going so she materialized two more daggers out of her inventory.

Instead of doing anything a sensible person would, Gai stood resolutely with both of the daggers in his left forearm and the shuriken embedded in his leg. His face had an incredibly angry grin on it's face and equally as murderous. She had only seen as face that look anything like it. That type of face was the one who haunted her dreams. And his was sure to also.

"You'll pay for that you bitch!" Gai yelled at the top of his lungs before he took off in a sprint at Sinon. She could see the shuriken go deeper and deeper into his leg as he ran. His face however should absolutely no hint off any pain, instead it looked as though he was about to tear her face off. If they had been in the real world then his left forearm, right leg, and right hip would be caked in blood. However in the game there was no blood, instead they one one and zero's and Gai was able to power through them.

Taking a deep breath, Sinon calmed herself. If Gai was anything but calm then she would have to be one hundred percent calm. Sinon felt her heart start to speed up with every footstep that he took and until she closed her eyes and raised her head. It would all be fine. This phrase was repeating itself inside her head over and over again. Even after she opened her eyes and crossed her knives in front of her, it kept her calm. Without it there was no way she would be, but she was fine. She was fine!

"DIE!" Gai yelled as he once again slammed all of his weight and strength into one downwards vertical. Sinon had no doubts about what her brain was telling her to do, so she followed it without a moment's hesitation. Standing her ground, Sinon helped her knives in front of her crossed until Gai showed of his attack. Then she lifted her knives and blocked the attack. While her strength waver a little bit against the first attack, Gai's strength was almost nothing. Even the tiny bit of strength that Sinon had built up throughout her time in Sword Art Online, she had more than he did.

Utilizing this, Sinon threw Gai's sword up and into the air then threw both of her blades at Gai's neck. Without any interference from Gai what so ever, both of them slid straight through Gai's neck as he burst into a shower of blue crystals. She had just killed him.

XXXX

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Sinon is awesome

Next chapter will be up in a few

Have a wonderful day

-Kirk


	219. Fetter

March 11, 2024

-Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Silica, Klein, Heathcliff, Ran, Keita, Griselda, Zaza, Zack, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

This was not going to plan. The plan was to take on Gai at the same time and now that wasn't going to happen. Saffi had been attacked by the last person she had wanted to see, the most viscous player in the entire game, the red eyed Zaza. And he lived up to his name, Saffi had never seen a pair of eyes so vibrantly red, not even from movies. Combined with his mask, he was a serial killer straight from an american movie.

Without so much as making a sound. Zaza sprinted at her with his estoc pulled close to his side. That sword had the ability to rip through anything that Saffi had had, including her body. Her number one priority was getting as far away from that weapon as possible using whatever means possible.

Using her left hand she swifted down her menu and pulled up what she liked to call her miscellaneous tab. Here she could pull whatever she need and should have the best response possible to Zaza. However that came with an obvious cavate, she would have to now what could counter him and hope she had what would actually have the counter. This was not going to be a good battle for her. Saffi personally doubted that she would even be able to present him with a good battle.

Her first choice of weapon was a very long whip. This was the longest whip that she had seen or heard about in her time in Aincrad. In addition to that it's durability was nearly full, she had used it in a real battle just yet, now would be the perfect opportunity. If it worked as she thought it would work then she would get ample time to figure out some of his way of fighting and his weaknesses. The other result was something she would rather not think about.

The long whip of Saffi's started swing and snap wildly in every direction, unpredictable and with Saffi's guidance, centered on Zaza. Almost not even trying, Zaza was able to deflect the whip each and every time it got near him. Thankfully, the whip was making it so that Zaza couldn't make any significant gains on assaulting her. Saffi was one hundred percent fine with a stand still while the both of them tried to figure out each other's faults. At least then the battle was not between the physically abilities but between the mental ones. Maybe she could win a mental battle against him.

As though it was as light as paper, Saffi pulled out a shuriken and threw it at Zaza with her left hand. This made for some terrible accuracy, but that was the plan. Instead of keeping his mind on the shuriken flying through the air, Zaza kept only an eye on it. Maybe he wouldn't be fast enough to react to what she was about to do. Using her whip, Saffi redirected the shuriken so that instead of flying off into some random duel, it would shoot itself straight at Zaza. This would helpfully at least manage to scrap him.

Zaza easily deflected it as if he had known it was coming all along. The shuriken fell onto the ground clanging into the weird platform a couple of times before finally falling silent. Then Zaza started his plan, one that seemed entirely more thought out and leagues better than her own. This red player was more than a challenge for anyone, much more so for her. That didn't mean she was going to back down one bit.

Using almost unparalleled speed, Zaza sprinted at Saffi through her net of a whip, not even getting touched once by it. Instead of continuing to use a failed mechanism, Saffi switch gears entirely. While preparing her next weapon of choice, Saffi prepared her plan her whip. Even though it wasn't doing any good, didn't mean it was useless. Quite the opposite in fact. The whip could prove to be the catalyst for her winning, she just would have to use a different tactic.

Abandoning her whip, Saffi spun it around in the air a bit so that the handle had a decent amount of momentum then let it go. The effect of this was that it made for a rather interesting obstacle for Zaza to have to get through. Of course it didn't do much of anything but it still kind of slowed him down.

Now it was time for her to get out her next weapon of choice, a hula hoop, or at least that was what the game said it was. It was a circular ring that was large enough to have a katana fit through it. That was not what made Saffi wanted to by it, what made he want to by is the fact that it was made out what seemed to be a bent piece of metal. Not only that but the metal did not seem to be set in it's place, rather held together by one joint. If that joint was broken then it could serve as a more flexible pole, something she really wanted to try out.

Breaking the joint, Saffi started to twirl it around creating a whirling sound in the air. It was quite heavy, way heavier than any other weapon she had ever used before, and that included a ball made out of metal. However this weapon was nowhere near as effective had she had imagined it being. It was entirely too heavy to be effective and thus she had to scrap it and fast. As though it was some sort of javelin, Saffi stopped the momentum she had built up and threw it straight at Zaza.

Not so much as bothering to see what damage she had done with it, Saffi pulled out her next weapon, a flail. At least this was an actual weapon if not entirely archaic. The ball and chain she wielded was very big, at least the ball was. At the end of a longish chain was a spiked ball that was at least double the size of Saffi's head. Without much effort it could take off a person's head, even through a helmet.

Saffi jumped at the approaching red player in hopes to break his rhythm. This was easily done but not by Saffi, but by the gigantic ball that followed her movements. With how huge it was most players would have expected it to be slow but it in fact quite fast. It was easily enough to overwhelm Zaza for a brief moment. That was until he had done something that surprised Saffi. Zaza's estoc shot out and lodged itself in one of the chains holding the ball and handle together. Pulling on it would break the chain so instead of doing that, Saffi simply dropped it then jumped backward.

In one moment Saffi pulled out three weapons. Two of her shurikens were between the fingers of her left hand while her metal ball balanced her foot. Using one of them almost instantly, Saffi threw it off in the direction of Sinon and Gai's dual. She did not now it would help or hurt or if Sinon was even alive but she had to at least send some help. By the time she had turned back to her on foe, he was right on top of her.

Instinctively she kicked the hard metal ball at him, sliding it across the ground. As it fly towards Zaza they both could her every time it touched the ground as it made a loud clank. However this wasn't enough time for Zaza to react to it as it took his leg out from underneath him before he had a chance to respond. This did not stop him at all, instead it only immobilized him. His sword shot out at Saffi with amazing speed. Using her shuriken in her right hand, Saffi caught the blade inside the metal ring. In response to this, with his uninjured left leg, Zaza jumped up and kicked her in the head. This knocked her off her feet and onto the ground while knock her out. All that she felt was her face in an incredible amount of pain before she blacked out.

XXXX

And Zaza enters

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter(s) will be up in a week

Have a great week till then

-Kirk


	220. Dual

March 11, 2024

-Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Silica, Klein, Heathcliff, Ran, Keita, Griselda, Zaza, Zack, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

Asuna watched as Zaza flipped his sword till he was holding it backwards over Saffi. Just beforehand she had just seen her get kicked in the head right after she had seemingly won. And now she was about to die, from a dual that she had no chance of winning in the first place. However, that didn't mean that she had given anything less than one hundred percent. It was just that Zaza was something else. Saffi didn't back down until she had known she couldn't win and even then, she fought on. Now, it was her turn.

Her sword ripped through the red player that she had been facing for a while now. This player was nothing special, at least in the skills department. Everything about his skills were dull and basic. From his style to his attack patterns, nothing was hard at all. The only thing that was hard was knowing that her blade had just killed another soul. That was a fact that she would have to live with for the rest of her days.

Before she knew it, her shoulder had slammed into Zaza's side, drastically knocking his sword out of the way. Even with this, the end of Zaza's blade barely missed Saffi's body, a cut on her sleeve was evidence of it. Asuna quickly transferred into a an upwards sweep. This got blocked by Zaza's estoc which result in a loud scrap of metal.

What resulted next was almost too fast for her eyes to comprehend. Zaza and Asuna went into a furious battle of speed with their two respective light weapons. Without anything weighing them down, they were at the fastest speeds they could. Coupled with the fact that each of their blows had the ability to stagger, it was an incredibly dangerous battle. The slightest misstep, or over calculation would easily lead to her death. None of that mattered, until she did make a mistake, and that wasn't going to happen.

"You're a lot better than the last one, you're fast enough." Zaza snarled once their blades connected and held for a second.

"I take that as a compliment." Asuna chuckled as she punched Zaza in the face. She knew that Zaza would do it as she had seen him use his body before. All she had to do was use her fists before Zaza would. Asuna felt her soft hand bend like rubber on Zaza's face but nevertheless it shoved Zaza backwards. "But you haven't seen anything yet." Asuna grinned as she lead her next attack.

Jumping, Asuna let out a flurry of strikes, in every way possible. She also tried to make it so her attacks were sporadic and uneven, yet all powerful and well timed. This was met with varying levels of success as it was quite the task to do so. In addition to that she was trying to keep the height advantage which she didn't have at all during their last confrontation. Her constant jumping was enough for her to keep it but Zaza exploited the amount of work she was using to keep it.

Aiming for lower and lower on her body she finally and slowly got out of her range. Once he did this he got the most vulnerable spot he could possibly get, her foot. Asuna felt the blade grow through the middle of her foot and out the other side. In an instant the pain of the strike blinded out all else. All that she could feel was her foot shouting out to her that it was pain, as if she didn't already know.

She could feel the power slow drain out of her body as she closed her eyes for one brief moment. That was all that she would allow herself to have, then she would attack like she hadn't even got that wound. Burying all of the pain deep within herself, Asuna opened her eyes with a fiery passion. Even deep down in the most hollow of her bones she could feel her her soul light up as if it was on fire. In this moment, she knew she could win.

As soon as she opened her eyes, Asuna slammed her hands hard onto Zaza's right arm making him let go. Then she swung her sword out in front. This gave her time to enact her actually plan, one that was even crazy to execute. However with just the right amount of crazy, she would be able to overcome one of the strongest players in the game. Grasping Zaza's sword with her left hand, she pulled it out of her foot.

The pain was unlike anything she had ever felt before. If she had to relate it to one thing, she would relate it to pulling of a band aid. If said band aid covered a good portion of your body, didn't want to be unstuck and was somewhat inside of you. Yeah, no, this was way worse than a band aid. Asuna could feel all of the support that usually held her up was not there anymore.

Not of that mattered, Asuna forced her left leg to cooperate as she pointed both of her swords towards Zaza. She felt her breaths increasingly become more labored as she tried to get her heart rate down. Fighting with her heart was not the way to win this. Emotions got in the way of battle. They made rash decisions, those types of decisions would get her killed. Asuna had no clue how to attack with two swords at once, she would have learn in this instant. Without so much as thinking through what she was going to do next, Asuna started to attack.

Her aim was to be as sporadic as humanly possible. Both of her blades had to be attacking at different times one after another, in different areas. She couldn't give him so much as a moment to even think up a plan. The moment he got a plan she was dead, and wouldn't be able to see Kirito again. Asuna felt herself push even harder to become faster stronger and even more sporadic. It was as if her arms and swords had a mind of their own, acting on pure force of will, like nothing else was forcing them to attack.

Then she felt a hand punch her face. It had came out of seemingly nowhere, as if it had just appeared there in the moment. The punch made he stagger back for a couple of moments until she foot her balance again. If she didn't have the wound in her foot then she would've been able to do much faster. However without the balance that came from two well feet she would be severely unbalanced. Once she had finally gotten herself back on two feet, a kick to the stomach sent her backwards.

Instead of trying to balance herself, Asuna fell to the ground. Once she did she push of the ground with her hands even though both of them still had their swords. This sent into the air and allowed her to kick Zaza in the chest, which he had not been expecting. Even with this kick, it didn't not even move him on bit. Zaza returned the kick back with soo much force direct at Asuna that both of the swords were knocked out of her hands, and she was knocked to the ground.

"Nice try, The Lightning Flash, Asuna." Zaza mocked.

XXXX

Hope you all enjoyed dual wielding Asuna

Next chapter will be up in a few

This chapter was fun

Have a great day

-Kirk


	221. Duel

March 11, 2024

-Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Silica, Klein, Heathcliff, Ran, Keita, Griselda, Zaza, Zack, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

Before he could even raise his sword and get near Asuna, another player stepped in between them. Only using a one handed long sword and dressed in a black cloak. His hair was black and shaggy which dipped down low in one sharp point between his eyebrows. The black longsword was off to his right and behind him. To match his completely dark exterior was an equally dark face that completely didn't suit his face well. It distorted and fragmented his face into that of a killer, or rather, a mercenary.

"The Black Swordsman, I've been waiting for this chance for a long time." Zaza stated as he brought his sword out in front of him. His red eyes pierced straight through everything until they hit Kirito's face. While he could tell that Kirito was angry at him, he could not tell what type of anger it was nor why it had came about. Kirito's face was stolid as ever, they shot a look of cold hatred that could rival the red eyes that Zaza had donned in Sword Art Online.

Without so much as a word to him, Kirito rushed at Zaza. It was nowhere near the speed that Zaza could reach but it at least tried. Kirito would be able to keep up with the fastest for some time until his speed would actually cripple him. However now that he knew that, Zaza could easily overcome the strength of the Black Swordsman. Even one of Aincrads strongest fought line player's, had a blaring weaknesses.

Kirito came at him with a sweeping uppercut, which Zaza easily dodged by a late sidestep. If he had done it even a second later then he would've gotten cut in half, but he had just managed to miss it. This in turn put Kirito straight into his trap.

Taking his sword, Zaza slammed it hard against Kirito's, which was retracting to defend himself. If this had been Zaza's plan then what Kirito would've done might have actually worked out. However that would have been a very shitty plan. Zaza's plan had worked perfectly. Instead of using the opening Kirito's last attack had give to get in a short not that effect attack that could possibly be deflect, he choose to go for it all.

His push against Kirito's sword would no doubt leave Kirito in an even worse position. Even though his estoc was as effect as a usually short sword and Kirito's longsword would be at pushing another sword back, he had gotten to be quite the savant with the blade. Unlike most blades, it did not a much of an edge, more resorting to the fine point at the end to do all of it's work for it. In addition that it was surprisingly heavy, at least for everyone else and long, it was devastatingly fast. With it, Zaza could attack outside of most players range and still get decent hits off. Yet another advantage that Zaza had over Kirito.

Both of them pushed past each other and Zaza could almost sense that Kirito wanted to get some distance between the two of them. Like Zaza would ever even think about giving hima meter much less multiple. Swing his blade backwards, Zaza felt his blunt blade whack into the side of Kirito's leg. It was barely the edge and if it had been an sword with an edge it would've let a nice cut but all Zaza's estoc could do was leave a small. There was some disadvantages to his blade.

"Come on Kirito, I didn't wait all this time to face only to be sorely disappointed. SHow me your power Black Swordsman or die by my blade." the red eyed red player said as he pounced on Kirito. With a ton of linears aimed at all over his torso, Kirito's defense quickly failed his first test. Since he was too far away for a direct counter strike, Kirito was left with dealing with his sword. This task was obviously to great for him to handle.

"What's this, the Black Swordsman can't even match a dull blade, I wonder, how much trouble you have a against a sharp one." Zaza said as he disconnected from his constant barrage of attacking. A devious grin plastered his face, this was going to be fun. Zaza had just stayed right out of his range, just enough for Kirito to attack but he would have to show his attack before he could execute it.

Before he had even finished his last word, Kirito launched an attack at him. With a hard downwards vertical he aimed straight for Zaza's head but was stopped in his tracks. Kirito's sword was weighing down all of it's weight onto Zaza's estoc. In his hands he could feel the long blade start to ever so slight bend. However it was barely even there, Zaza was surprised that he felt it and doubted with all of his being that Kirito had.

"Color me impressed, That's some power and audacity you have there. A dangerous combination if used correctly. But not good enough." Zaza smirked as he slide his sword on Kirito's. Neither of of the blades could keep the other in place so, Zaza's was able to move the blade quite easily.

Obviously not wanting to get caught in the trap, Kirito jumped backwards hoping to avoid Zaza's estoc. However, thanks to the range of it, Kirito was not so lucky. With ease Zaza had thrusted out his blade and stabbed Kirito in his lower left side. Kirito did manage to prevent any other wounds for the time being but if Zaza got that attack in real life, it would be fatal. The only thing keeping him from not dying was the fact that they were in a game.

"Is this the top of your ability? I have to say Kirito, I was hoping for more." Zaza grinned as he held his sword vertical in front of his. He could feel the glare of one of his eyes bouncing of his sword and mask. Kirito grasped his side, the damage he had just taken while not life threatening hurt probably hurt like hell. This was going to be an easy battle after all. Then Kirito let go of his side and started to walk towards him.

Zaza grinned, he could tell that this was now going to be the fight he had been waiting for, the true Black Swordsman was about to reveal just how strong he was. Much like Kirito, Zaza started to walk towards Kirito but this was short lived. He could not wait for his blade to sink into the flesh of him and thus his speed reflected that. Sprinting now, Zaza prepared himself to release a barrage of linears all centered at one place, Kirito's chest. However before he could get in range, Kirito lunged at him.

This completely broke the rhythm that Zaza had tried to gain and instead gave it to Kirito. The sweeping forward lung that he had just produced had completely blown Zaza off task. He had been given two options, either back off and give Kirito the advantage or test the durability of his blade. While he hated giving away the advantage, that was what Zaza had to choose.

Backing off, Zaza prepared for get the offense back. There was no way that Kirito could keep up this offense for too long, if he had then most definitely overextend himself. With that in mind, Zaza pulled his sword back preparing to launch a linear.

However, Kirito once again turned to surprise him. Instead of stopping like most people would to recollect himself, Kirito lead straight into another attack. Almost as if the two attacks had been meant for each other, Kirito swung his sword and jumped upwards. This result in a forward leap at Zaza with the black long sword over his head. Where that sword would hit would most likely crumble under the pressure he was about to give.

Smartly, Zaza dodged only to be cut by another one of Kirito's attacks, albeit an incredibly well executed one and it came out of nowhere. The moment Kirito hit the ground, he spun with his sword outstretched. Zaza's stomach had received quite a deep wound in it, enough to at least make him feel it. Almost instantly, Zaza brought up his sword to defend whatever Kirito's next attack would be. His next attack came in the same moment he had done that and the two blades hit each other going in opposite directions. As if it was made of paper, Zaza's blade shattered into a blur of blue.

Zaza's next attack was made in the instant and it was a desperate one. Zaza each at him with both of his outstretched. His target was Kirito's neck however he was stop long before he could get there. Both of Zaza's hands had been cut off the moment they even got somewhat closer. Kirito then proceeded to knock him onto the ground with just his left arm. He had just lost the duel.

XXXX

And Kirito wins

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter I sure did

Next chapter(s) will be out in a week

Have a wonderful week

-Kirk


	222. Deadbeat

March 11, 2024

-Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Silica, Klein, Heathcliff, Ran, Keita, Griselda, Zaza, Zack, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

Zaza's sword clanged against the ground causing everybody to look at it. Everybody easily traced the sword back to both Kirito and Zaza. What everybody saw astounded quite a few people.

At the moment, Kirito stood over Zaza with his sword held backwards and ready to pierce through Zaza's head. On the ground, Zaza was utterly defeated by the Black Swordsman, unable to get up. The leader of this band of Laughing Coffin members had been knocked to the ground. Even better yet, Kirito looked like he hadn't even been damaged. This was a major morale boost for the front lines. With it they could beat the remaining members of Laughing Coffin.

The number of Laughing Coffin members still up when Zaza fell was just over half. Any of the ones that had fallen at this point had died. The had fought with all of their strength and most of them had taken down one or two members of the front line. If it had continued at this rate then Laughing Coffin would win.

However they couldn't keep this up. With the loss of both Gai and Zaza who had taken on a good number of the strongest front lines members, the rest were sitting ducks. Beforehand all that was facing them was Diavel, Heathcliff and Ran. Other than the few players who rose to the occasion, these were the players who could actually win a duel rather. The thirty or so Laughing Coffin players were not only outnumbered, they were also underpowered.

Another one died from Keita's blade. Even though he was not the most adept at the game, he was still able to keep up with Laughing Coffin. As of right now the death count by his blade was three. Of course that was only a tenth of those who had died so far and they had killed more people than they had. Laughing Coffin had killed around forty players.

And then Zaza fell to the ground. Beforehand, Gai had been brutally killed by Sinon. With the fact that Zack had turned sides, Laughing Coffin was left with no leaders, and in turn chaos ensued. Gone were any of the sane tactics that Laughing Coffin was still using. Now the tactics that were somewhat sane had now morphed into the insane. Anything and everything they could do to stretch one kill into two, with no regard for safety, the did.

Keita watched as one player got impaled by one of Laughing Coffin's sword users then proceed to push him until his sword got another person, shattering the both of them into a million shards bursting in every direction. Instead of there being a deficit of moral for Laughing Coffin, it seemed as though they were reinvigorated. Then they started to absolutely go all out on front lines.

One specific red player shove a players spear further into him then killed the player before also dying. They were all going to die unless they kicked it into high gear. Keita's hands shook uncontrollable as he looked all around him. Players were dying left and right, both Laughing Coffin members and front liners. How in the world was he going to do anything? He was no front line member and if the front line members couldn't do anything then how was he going to do anything. Then he saw Kirito standing over Zaza, with his sword hovering over his head. If Kirito could do that, then he could do it too.

Spinning his spear, Keita observed his surroundings. Laughing Coffin had secured over half of the platform as was pushing to get even more. A group of players were surrounded by at least ten Laughing Coffin members. Upon close inspection, the group was the remaining members of Fuurinkazan. That guild had already lost a significant number of it's players and shouldn't have to deal with any more losses.

Without thinking it through, Keita ran at those players. They needed the help and that what he was going to do, no matter what. Most of the other players were occupied so he was able to slip through the lines somewhat easily. He felt his feet move one after the other, it was if he was flying across the battlefield. His fear was overriding his body, the fear that another person would die. Utilizing this, Keita attacked the players.

He was met with two brutally strong players, at least for him. One of the players came at him with an enormous axe while the other rushed at him with two daggers. The first swing from the axe made Keita do a double take and fade backwards. Before he could get himself into the position to launch an attack, the other player pounced onto him.

That player flew at Keita with such ease, it was as if he was dancing, albeit extremely frighteningly. Each time his daggers came at Keita, they were just mere centimeters from hit his skin. It was all that Keita could do to keep him off him. Compared to any of the strong spear users, he was no one. Without the proper time to set up he couldn't do anything. He wasn't fast enough nor was he strong enough. Once he was backed into a corner then he would fall. Keita knew this and yet he needed a plan to get himself out of this mess.

The enormous axe came at him once again and this was just what he wanted, two players attacking him at the same time, brilliant, what was he thinking? He was no Black Swordsman or Lightning Flash, he was a low life that wasn't even on the front lines. All that he had done so far in the game was let all of his friends die. There was no way he was going to die here, there was a reason that he survived and that was to carry on their memories, to tell their families of what had happened inside the game, to blame Kirito even though he had saved him.

Using the blunt end of his spear, Keita stopped the axe by lodging his spear underneath the large blade. Even though the strength of the player was great, Keita could hold it off for long enough. Then he ducked underneath the dagger's users attack and let the axe go downwards. With ease, the axe cut of both of the dagger users arms and he exploded into millions of blue shards. Hiding under the shards, Keita broke away from the axe user.

"You're smart kid, I'll give you that, but your brains can't beat me!" The axe user yelled as he raised his axe directly at Keita then proceed to attack him with a downwards vertical. Keita thought that his vision had been successfully impaired by the shards but he was proven wrong. This one over calculation would cost him his life. Even though it would be all for nothing, Keita flipped around and started to ready his spear.

However before the axe could cut his body into two or he readied his spear another person intersected the attack. Blocking the axe from killing him was a single short sword. Connected to the sword was the youngest player on the front lines, Ran. Easily, her sword stopped the axe from hitting him.

"You." The axe player exclaimed as he backed off.

"What's up." Ran said as she advanced on the player. He instantly launched a downwards vertical, which Ran easily dodged. She then in turn returned it in kind but her was a lot more effective. In fact she killed the player in one swift blow.

"Let's go save them." Ran stated as she grabbed Keita's arm and pulled him up.

XXXX

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Keita actually got to do a thing

Next chapter will be up in a few

Have a wonderful day

-Kirk


	223. Drub

March 11, 2024

-Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Silica, Klein, Heathcliff, Ran, Keita, Griselda, Zaza, Zack, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

"You're something, aren't you?" Zaza said as he laid on the ground, his body whole throbbed. Kirito watched as he saw the pain coming from Zaza's missing hands coursed throughout his entire body. The red player Zaza had been swiftly defeated by him and now he had a chance to decide whether or not to kill him.

Kirito looked around to survey the battlefield. The battlefield was not to his liking, most of the Laughing Coffin members were able to take on two players at a time and win, which was not good. However upon closer inspection, Kirito noticed something that made it a whole bunch better. While the majority of the front lines weren't doing so well, a select few were doing extremely well. Ran, Diavel, Sinon and the like were taking out player after player with ease, it wouldn't be long until Laughing Coffin fell. Even Griselda was having an easy time.

That was not the deciding factor for this situation however, there was another one that concerned him. From Kirito's guess there had been about sixty players that had attacked them, enough to take them out if it had not been for Zack. He had not only taken at a few of the players and gave both Zaza and Gai a run for their money but he had completely destroyed Laughing Coffin's plan. There was no surprise attack and thus Laughing Coffin's plan had been all for nothing. Or so he thought.

While it was not obvious, there was players missing, quite a few. The most obvious ones were influential players like Johnny Black and PoH. Both of them were successful killers and yet they were not here. Kirito's hunch was that they were strong at the behind the scenes business. Stuff like information gathering and stealth missions. Gai and Zaza on the other hand were bloodthirsty killers, they had wanted to be here while Johnny Black and PoH had most likely not want to be.

They had taken a crew of players like them and ran, that why there was no green players attacking them. It wasn't the fact that this was a red guild, no they needed those players more if Laughing Coffin was going to survive. This attack of sixty players on them was to make sure that they got away successfully, all the players that they killed here was just a bonus.

Their plan to eradicate Laughing Coffin wasn't going to work, they had outmaneuvered them. Someone had leaked their plans to Laughing Coffin and had given them the chance to continue on. All of the players that they had already lost here, which was nearing sixty at this point was all because of a leak of information. They should be grateful that this was the time that Zack decided to turn, if he had not then they might have all died here.

Looking down at Zaza, he looked ready to die for his cause, as was the rest of them. His face had a sort of devilishly suicidal look to it, he was insane. This was Zaza one of the original members of Laughing Coffin, one of it's Leaders. He was the leader of all killing missions, and an expert at doing so. Apparently after doing so for soo long, it turns your mind a little insane but no matter. Even though he was beyond repair, they needed him more than any of the others, he was possibly the only one of the Laughing Coffin members that could help them. Kirito lowered his sword.

"What, to chicken to kill me, worried that you'll turn into me?" Zaza started to laugh maniacally, it was enough to hear even over all of the duels of players around him. Zaza may be somewhat right with his taunt but that didn't matter any more. He had already killed two players before he subdued Zaza. His hands were already stained red, there was no turning back.

All around him, were front line players starting to subdue their foes. Silica and Pina had successful beaten a player into the ground with a stellar showing of team work. It was not necessary that they killed all of them, while each and every single one deserved a fate worse than death, it was not for them to decide. Before the battle they had decided that once they had a firm upper hand, they would subdue instead of kill. After all, they had a jail waiting to be filled.

Then Kirito felt a hard kick to his back. He fell hard to the ground but instantly rebounded back up and punched the player that had done that to him in the stomach. Zaza fell to the ground once again, now in a lot more pain. Kirito had just punched him right on one of his wounds. That hit should keep him down for enough time for Kirito to come with a way to actually subdue him.

Kirito sheathed his sword then turned around to face Zaza once more. He could tell that Zaza was going to try to get back up so he in turn to more of preemptive measure. His fist flew into Zaza's face, knocking him out in an instant. While he would much rather kill him, they needed him questioning later, unfortunately he needed to stay alive.

"You're something else Black Swordsman, but don't think for a second that a feeble punch such as that one is going to knock me out, who do you think you are?" Zaza laughed as he grabbed his stomach, at least that punch had done something. With every moment that he spent near Zaza he wanted to kill him more and more. So much anger and revenge boiled inside of Kirito and here was Zaza, a perfect outlet for it. If he wasn't so goddamn important in his guild, he could kill him. Kirito clenched his fist.

If he killed Zaza then it would be all for nothing. Kirito doubted that Zack had been intrusted with the information and the only other high ranking player had been killed by Sinon. While that was insanely helpful, it meant that Zaza got a ticket out, much to Kirito's dismay. Zaza had probably killed more players than had been killed in this entire battlefield. Maybe even double the amount and yet he was going to survive it.

"Come on, I know you want to, think about how good it will feel to sink your sword into my flesh, think about great it felt the first time, how your fist felt each time you punched me. Think about be writhing in pain under your torture. It'll help you deal with it all. I know you, Black Swordsman. You've witnessed death, people dying right in front of you, saving you, and you helpless to save them. How did that make you feel? Like hell didn't it, so why don't you take it out on me. That pain inside of you has been filling up for over a year now. How could you face them knowing that you didn't kill me? One of the worst players in existence. The face's of those you have been unable to save will haunt you at night for forever, it almost as if you killed them." Kirito closed his eyes, he saw them, all of them, the one's he knew and were friends with, to the one he loved, to the ones he didn't even know.

Then he felt and hand on his shoulder. Even though Zaza was still talking, Kirito could hear him any more. Upon it touching his shoulder, he knew exactly whose hand it was, it was Asuna's. His heart rate slow and face after face, they all smiled and left him until he open his eyes to be greeted by Asuna.

"You okay?" Asuna sounded worried.

With a genuine smile, Kirito said he was great.

XXXX

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Kirito got to do things

Next chapter(s) will be up in a week

Have a splendid week

-Kirk


	224. Detain

March 11, 2024

-Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Silica, Klein, Heathcliff, Ran, Keita, Griselda, Zaza, Zack, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

"I can take him off your hands." Griselda said as she walked up to two players standing next to the infamous Zaza. The rest of Laughing Coffin had been successfully subdued now, so they were cleaning up and making sure that each one of the Laughing Coffin members were in handcuffs or a suitable substitute. They had were checking to figure all that had died on their side.

"Thanks." The Black Swordsman said breathlessly as he moved out of the way to let Griselda to him. She stopped for a couple of seconds analyzing the two players in front of her. The female one she had heard a little bit about. Her name was Asuna, often referred to as the Lightning Flash, Asuna. Third in command of the Knights of the Blood Oath, she held an important position. Other than that all else that she been told about Asuna was that she reminded players of her. With the exception of an ages difference somewhere around a decade, she could see the resemblance.

However, the player standing next to her was the one that had caught her eye. The infamous Black Swordsman, or as she often heard him referred to, that Jackass. From what she could tell, he wasn't all that well like, if at all. Truth be told, her view of him was probably screw up a lot as most of what she had heard of him had been from Keita.

When she first meet Keita his most defining characteristic was his hatred for the beater. While quite a lot of people shared this hatred for beaters, Keita's was solely focused on Kirito, as if there was some history there. After a little bit of digging, questioning and getting to know more about Keita, she learn that she was correct. In fact she was a little more than correct, there was a lot of history between them. It was almost able to rival that between her and her husband.

As it turns out, he hadn't always been solo player, he had in fact been the leader of his own guild. They were all friends from his school computer club and had known each other for far longer. Some of them had even been friends all the way back in elementary school. According to him, they all had died in front of Kirito and he didn't do anything to save them. Griselda personally found this a little bit hard to believe but nonetheless didn't pursue the subject. It seemed to get him steam whenever the name Kirito was mention in his presence. While she typically stayed away from the subject, triggering him did have it's merits.

In exchange for his divulging of information, she told him all that had happen with her husband Grimlock. With all that he had done he should really deserved the rank of dead or at least single. Unfortunately, that couldn't be official until they got out of the game but they were a lot but broken up now. Trying to kill your wife was grounds for divorce, even if everyone disagreed with her. She would rather die than were his ring again.

"Are you going to go." Her voice had a lot of false cheeriness in it. She was practically saying, get a move on, in the politest way that she could manage. This was lot more than really suffice for Griselda to heed her command. Compared to others, it seemed like she had a silver spoon accent.

With both of her hands, Griselda cuffed Zaza's hands and brought him up and unto his feet. She held his hands firmly as she started to escort him to where all all of the other players were. Griselda didn't exactly know where she would have to bring him to as he was the most dangerous player out of all of them but she would figure out where to put him.

"Are you my angel?" Zaza whispered in her ear. This made her freeze for less than half a second. She spent more time contemplating on punching him in the balls then actually being taunted or whatever he was trying to do with his words. Griselda's fingers didn't even slacken one bit, he was really trying his hardest to get away from them. She couldn't figure out why he would be doing that but she didn't really feel like ask asking either. While she may be escorting him, the fact that he was a known serial killer unnerved her just a little bit.

"Oo, you're a feisty one aren't you, wait don't I know you from somewhere?" Zaza inquired as he looked her up and down. Griselda rolled her eyes and continued to walk him over to the other players. It would be really creepy if this serial killer knew who I was, even creepier than the fact that my husband tried to kill, unsuccessful or not. At least she had gotten retribution on that front.

"Ah, I remember you now, you were one of our targets, one of our subordinates was sent to kill you." Zaza stated triumphantly as he trained to pull away once more, but instead it seemed as though he was hit with a ton of pain. Apparently the hands that he had lost during his fight hadn't completely heal back yet. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw the cut marks where Kirito's sword had cut them straight off. Zaza cursed under his breath. He cursed for quite a while and the only word that she could make out was Kirito. If she had to guess she would say that he was going to attempt revenge at some time.

"You were pronounced dead by quite a few sources, but I don't remember who I sent after you, it was probably that traitor over there, he probably could kill a girl like you." Now she really want to punch him. Zaza really knew how to get onto people's nerves but she took a deep breath a didn't let him get to her. His last sentence pissed her off on soo many levels she couldn't begin to explain. Though it did tell her that he forget who was sent after her at least.

That was extremely good, if Johnny Black, her supposed killer was still alive then they still had an inside man. He had been the one to save her and while he had not been as helpful as Zack and someone else, an anonymous information specialist, he had still helped plan out this attack. It was him who had given them the detailed analysis of Gai and without it they probably would have just skimmed over him. Thankfully they hadn't as he proved to be even more dangerous than Zaza this time around.

"I'll have to make sure he gets proper repremading when I get out where you're caging us up." Zaza said contemptuously as I got to all the other players.

"I'd like to see you try." Griselda smirked as she turned from Zaza to one of the other players. "Where should we put their leader?" She asked as she looked around at everyone else how they had caught. There was at least somewhere near fifteen, a fairly big number. Maybe they could get something helpful off of them.

"Bring him to the front, they should all follow the leader to the jail. You can walk him if the Black Swordsman doesn't want to." There wasn't a touch of disdain in his oddly familiar face.

"Alright." Griselda smirk at Zaza as she pulled him to the front of the line, this was going to be fun.

XXXX

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Zaza is now in jail

Next chapter will be out in a few

Have a wonderful day

-Kirk


	225. Dimes

March 11, 2024

-Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Diavel, Silica, Klein, Heathcliff, Ran, Keita, Griselda, Zaza, Zack, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

"I'm sorry." Zack said as he covered his face with his hands. If he were in the real world a multitude of sweat would've passed between the two of them but thankfully there was no sweat to pass. Because if there had been not only his face would be covered in it, his entire body would be. Zack's body had only felt worse on one occasion, though that wasn't to say that the multitude of scraps and cuts he had received were terrible.

"For what?" It had been the first time in forever that his brother had talked to him and the first thing he said was a question. This was most likely fitting as there had been somethings he had done in Sword Art Online that could be deemed, questionable. For instance, Why did you join Laughing Coffin.

If Kazuma was to ask that, then he would actually have quite a good succinct response. Since he didn't have the level to join the front lines, Zack tried to make the rest of Aincrad more livable while the front lines attempted to beat the game. After a short while it became clear to Zack that the menace that had plagued Aincrad at that moment was Laughing Coffin not Kayaba. Being a one man army, Zack only had one option, destroy it from the inside out, and that was exactly what he had done. He had done anything and everything to get to take out Laughing Coffin.

"Everything that happened, all of my mistakes, not a single day goes by were I wish it had been me who died that day." Zack said with his head bowed down low. His face was practically touching the ground in the position he was in. The simplest explanation was that he was begging for forgiveness from his brother. Forgiveness for a terrible action he had done.

Back when the had just gotten trapped in the game, Zack had a logistical problem that arose from not being able to move his body. For nearly two years before the start of this game he had been addicted to quite a few drugs. The only ones who knew about it was Kazuma and his girlfriend, by now Zack suspected that his parents knew and so did the hospital as his withdrawal effects were the worst things ever. It was the only time in his life that his body ached more than it did at the current moment.

Kazuma's girlfriend immediately helped Zack out with question or hesitation. Like she had done in the real world whenever he was in one of his bad mood swings, she attempt to coax him out of it. However, this time was no ordinary time. Zack was incredibly explosive, rejected everything, extremely bipolar, and overall an enormous pain. It was to the extent that Kazuma was getting pissed off at him. Before SAO that I had only happen a scant number of times.

Then it happened one day, the unthinkable. Zack couldn't remember what had happened, he had been way too out of it for a while now. All that he remember seeing was a flash of blue followed by a million shards flying into the air. He couldn't even remember who had stood there in the moment. That was three days into Aincrad and kazuma hadn't talked to him since. It didn't take him long to release what had happened. The sword on the ground and a red player marker were enough. From that day forth all Zack was to Kazuma was a killer, an unforgivable one at that. This had been known to Zack for a long time.

It had taken him a little bit before he could get over the fact that his own brother wouldn't even look at him without a massive amount of disgust. This had unsettled Zack for quite some time until he was able to move passed it slightly. Even though it had perpetuated itself in the back of his mind, Zack was able to do something other than drink, at least for the time being. While Zack always wanted to seek his brothers approval, it had been out of reach at that moment, functionally impossible. So Zack decided to take on something nearly impossible and while he didn't take out Laughing Coffin, it wasn't exactly a failure.

After Zack took his face off his hands, he looked up at his brother's face. His face, usually kind and relaxed was sort of different today than usual. Beforehand it had been cold and full of malice but now it was sort of stuck in between. In addition to that mixture, he was also confused, which just made it all the more difficult to read his face. Actually, Zack couldn't read it one bit.

"Why did you join Laughing Coffin what was to be gained for all the player that meet their death from your blade why did you kill them?" Each of the questions came out with a stop from the last one, he had clearly taken of the breaks or didn't even know what they were it seemed like. However this was loads better than no words at all.

"They were going to do anyways, I had to keep up the act no matter the cost." Zack stated resolutely as he got back onto his feet. The was no good reason for doing what he had done other than the fact that everyone else was doing it. For no one, even himself would that reason hold anything of value. Ina trail that defense would instantly prove lackluster, unless you were like four. Unfortunately Zack was over six times that age.

"How many…" Kazuma's voice traveled off before he could finish the sentence. It was as though he couldn't get the sentence out, somehow something was stopping him from doing so. That did not mattered to Zack one bit, as he had gotten the jist of it in only two words.

"Eighty three, the ones I killed today were the last of them, that the number of people I've killed in Aincrad. They're range from all people to a sweet and adorable girl the pleaded with me even as I stabbed her to an old man who thanked me for ending his life. I even looted some of them before they died, I got weapons mostly, but some times I got clothes if time permitted. I was the premier contract killer, one of the fastest and most effective, side from Zaza. Since he had guild jobs to do, the contract kills came to me first. Whenever I could, I made sure that their deaths were painless." Zack couldn't look his brother in the eye, he frankly didn't want to see what was on his face, even if it was good.

"Did you have that plan when you joined?" Kazuma voice was absolute, as if this question was the end all be all, if this question would forgive or make him permanently banish his brother from his life. Only a little bit of pressure was placed on his back. This didn't change the fact that Zack was going to answer truthfully.

"I planned on undermining them." Zack stated as he opened his eyes and looked at his brother. His brother's face grew into a smile at Zack's did too after he saw it, then a voice yelled across the once battlefield.

"Is he coming with us?"

Kazuma looked taken aback and froze for a moment, in his hands were a pair of handcuffs, obviously meant for him. He didn't want to put them on him, somehow in only a brief conversation his outlook on his brother had changed. However with that said Zack was a killer, but he was also his brother.

Zack knew that his brother was stuck in the middle of an internal conflict, he would make it easier on him, Zack would decide for himself. He walked up to his brother and attached the handcuffs to his hands before leaving his brother with a last phrase, "See you later."

XXXX

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

How are you liking Zack

Next chapter(s) will be out in a week

Have a great week

-Kirk


	226. Delay

March 11, 2024

-Sinon, Diavel, Silica, Ran, Keita, Griselda, Grimlock, Zaza, Zack, Kazuma, Tsubaki, Saffi-

Zack laid on top of the cold hard ground of a jail cell. Thankfully he was the only one inside of it, if anyone else was the would certainly kill him. On their walk back from the dungeon there had been three attempts on his life alone, that was triple the amount of anyone else. The only other person to get that was Sinon. That was only because she had dealt the finishing blow on Gai. Of course she dealt with the player quite easily and he still had a red mark on his arms and face.

The handcuffs around his wrists broke into a blur of blue and Zack immediately rubbed his wrists. If there had been one part of that really long walk that had made him reconsider his choice it was the uncomfortableness of the handcuffs. It was as if they had made with the specific thought to be uncomfortable. But if that had made him change his decision then it would've showed how weak he was.

"Hey, all of you, Listen up!" It was one of the lance users, not one of the strong ones either. Zack however recognized him, he had done a little bit of scouting on the player and had done his research. The last remaining true member of the Moonlit Black Cats, the only other player to be in the game at the moment was the Black Swordsman himself.

This was in truth the reason why he had found out about Keita. Upon doing all the research for the Black Swordsman, he found that he wasn't always a solo player. That was one of the most interesting prospects at the time to he looked further into Keita's backstory. ALl the information pointed towards him being their leader. One eye witness account says that the two of the absolutely hated each other while another said differently. According to her, Keita hated Kirito and Kirito saved Keita. An interesting relationship to say the least.

However, Zack had not expected to see just how interesting Keita had become. He was even more so than the Black Swordsman to Zack. With the help of only one other person he had managed to convince the front lines, with copious amounts of field research and evidence that Laughing Coffin needed to be exterminated. What was more interesting was that the person that he had aligned himself was supposed to be dead. Johnny Black should've killed Griselda.

That means that there was still someone inside of Laughing Coffin that could bring them down. Zack relaxed a bit as he leaned against a wall of his prison. It dark and completely bland, perfectly fitting for a prison, though the players did pull all the stops for this prison. As it was player made everything was made by a player and put in her, everything from the small intricate lock to the functioning toilet. Plus, from what Zack could tell, there was no way out. Without outside interference there was no way that any of them were going to break out.

Before entering, all of their inventories had been completely purged with the sole exception of a set of clothes, the one that they were wearing. Most of the players had on some pretty destroy clothing and Zack was no exception. His sleeves were all but torn up and the same went for his pants. Most of his still clung to his body but there were others that had completely just given up on them and ripped their clothes off. Zack prefered not to look at those players.

Zack's mind went back to Johnny Black. Everything now rested on him, no one else in that group of players would turn on each other. All of them had been through thick and thin together. Some of the earliest of player killers combined with the elite information gathers. The best killers didn't escape with them as they wanted them to take out as many front line members as possible. However the one's that remain were not only sufficient but extremely loyal. With the exception of Johnny, they would die before giving up any information on Laughing Coffin, no matter the significance.

Next to Zack, the person in the cell lunged forward before bouncing off the bars. He hit the ground with a light thud a didn't move a bit. The player in that cell was one of the few in here before the rest of the got in their respective cells. In comparison to everyone else however, it seemed like he was taking it the worst. His body was thin like no other, face was extremely gaunt and it looked like he hadn't slept in weeks.

"Let me out, I didn't kill anyone, let me out, I'm begging you." His voice was a mixture of strong yet feeble. It was as if he was squeezing out his last bit of energy to make those words heard. Almost as if his life depended on it, and going of how he looked, maybe it did. The difference between his in game avatar and the real world version of him shouldn't look too different now. Both were probably entirely too feeble.

Then a loud series of footsteps commanded for everyone's attention. The few bits of conversation that were still going on between front line members finally died out. Everyone was looking at Griselda as she walked with a presence over to the cell next to Zack's. He could almost feel the player shaking in fear as she approached. He found himself the corner furthest away from the bars and curled up into the fetal.

"Your player marker seems to say differently." Like every other player in the cells, his was bright orange. Her voice hit notes of contempt as she smiled and turned around. Without another word she turned and walked away. There was no doubt that Griselda had something to do with the player next to him.

Then it hit him like a brick, he couldn't believe that he had forgotten. They had received the mission from one of the weirdest sources to date. From all the missions he had went on and heard of, this one still top the cake as one of the worst ones. Her husband had asked for her death, in any way possible, not even asking for the option to make it a quick death. They had even presented it to him as an option.

In the cell next to him was Grimlock, one of their employers, however now he was one of them, marker and all. Zack suspected that there was foul play involved in his marker but he had earned it, just not in the most usual of ways. Granted there was a lot of players that had earned it like him, from front line members killing off others to climb the ranks to even people wanting there to be less players in the game so they can grind better. Each and everyone of them was despicable, and Grimlock was one of the worst.

Zack watched as the last and final red player was put in his cell and locked up. They had jailed nineteen of them, just under a third of the number that had attacked them. Laughing Coffin lost forty something members while the front lines easily lost sixty. One percent of the starting players had died in the single battle. Maybe more would have died if Zack didn't screw Laughing Coffin over. It could've been possible for Laughing Coffin to win today but Zack had stopped that and now he was paying his dues for everything he had done to get there.

All of the front lines members slowly filed out. Griselda lead the first few, with her head held high and he back completely straight. She was definitely trying to show Grimlock just how much she had grown since entering the game. The rest followed slowly in suit. No one wanted to stay with the players that had killed soo many of their comrades and friends. Kazuma was the last player to leave. Before he did so he stopped in the entrance way and waited for a while as if he was contemplating something. However without doing something Kazuma left. Zack smiled. It was going to be a long thirty five floors until this game let out, might as we settle down in the meantime.

XXXX

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

They are now captured, what is going to happen to them

Next chapter will be out in a couple of minutes

Have a wonderful day

-Kirk


	227. Daemon

March 11, 2024

-Ran and Tsubaki-

"How are you doing?" They had both just gotten back from the prison. All of the Laughing Coffins members they had caught were now capture and being monitored twenty four seven by other players. There was no way they could even get close to getting out. Ran sat on the edge of her bed looking at Tsubaki who had was laying perfectly still in the exact center of the bed. She had been like that for almost an hour now.

In the Laughing Coffin battle she had went face to face with Gai, one of their most vicious and skilled players. He had utterly destroyed her twice, the second time he even cut of both of her feet. While they had both grown back, Ran could tell that Tsubaki was still in pain from the event more mental and physical. Her best friend was taking on one of the strongest players and where had she been, just cleaning up the weak ones, making sure that no one got double team. She should have been helping out Tsubaki.

"What do you think went through their minds?" Tsubaki asked as she moved her head to look at Ran. It was the first time Tsubaki had talked in a least a couple of hours. She didn't talk a single time during the walk to the prison nor inside of it. Her friend had been observing the surroundings with a careful eye, she had been absorbing everything. The only other time Tsubaki was doing that was when she was outside looking at the beautiful nature that was in the game.

"What do you mean?" Ran asked as she sat up more attentively. Slowly Tsubaki pushed herself into a sitting position. Then Ran saw her do something that she had never done before. Tsubaki opened her menu and materialized a comb before straightening out her short hair. Not even in the real world had she seen Tsubaki do that.

"When they were fighting us, what were they thinking. They knew that their were fighting for their deaths, and yet didn't slow down one bit. It was as though that it made them fight even harder." Tsubaki stated as she looked down at her hands. Laughing Coffin went into a battle that was a loss since the beginning and almost turned it into a victory. Back in the real world they had never gotten to see that. Whenever someone had started to lose the continued to do so until they died.

"They had something to fight for." This was true and was most likely the reason even if their reason to fight was to kill as many of them as possible. Even the most of corrupt of ideals can make you gone on a fight through anything. If it was possible for them to make the most of their life with those ideals, she should be able to do a lot more. Ran smiled, she had an idea now, and it was going to be a fun one.

"Come on, we have to get out of this inn." Ran grabbed Tsubaki's arm and pulled it. She didn't budge one bit but after having her arm yanked for a little bit she gave in a followed. Though she didn't let Ran run or pull her around with her arm. Tsubaki was being a little bit of a fun nazi, but no matter, there was no way that going to stop her.

"We are we going?" Tsubaki asked just as they had gotten outside. A cool spring breeze hit them as they opened up the doors, to Ran, it felt like home, a home that she had never known. She took a glance at Tsubaki, she had her eyes closed and was feeling her face cut the breeze in two. Back in the real world that wasn't something that she had really ever had the chance to do, at least in a long time.

"Come on, it's not much further away." They had made it out of the city much faster than Ran would have thought the would. To be fair, they were running but that had been Ran's plan anyways however she had not expected Tsubaki to copy her. Just a little over two days ago, Ran had found something that Tsubaki would love seeing, but due to the raid on Laughing Coffin she had forgotten. Now was probably the best time to show her what she found as it would definitely bring Tsubaki out of what she had fallen into.

"This is the Colossus of Rhodes." Ran stated once a giant statue of a man came into view. Actually that was incorrect, a statue of a god came into view. To Ran it reminded her vaguely of the giant statue in New york, even though she had never personally seen it. This was probably the closest she would get to seeing it.

"Is this another one of the seven wonders?" Tsubaki asked once they got close and she had to tilt her head all the way back so that all of it was in her vision, even it's huge privates. This statue had truly deserved the name 'Colossus'. It stood over a lake of water and cast its shadow down onto it. There was not a single part of the lake in front of it that the sun reflected off of.

"Yes, it was made in Rhodes, an island of the greek mainland. That is supposed to be the Titan-god Helios. In the real world it had been made completely out of marble, at the time it was the tallest statue in the world." Ran also looked at it in awe. No matter all the research of the wonders she had done in her free time, the real thing blew that out of the water. It almost made the death game worth it. When she got out of the game these would be some of the first things that she would tell her sister.

"I assume it was destroyed." Tsubaki stated as she walked up to the statue and ran her hand over it. Ran did the same. It was smooth, had almost no cracks in it but had just enough unevenness to make it seem real. Whoever had programed this into the game had definitely had a field day with it. They had at least spent a week or two on it.

"An earthquake knocked it over, it broke at the knees. The top half stayed on the ground for almost a thousand years before it was moved." Ran stated as she imagine the body of the massive god laying on the ground. Even if she wanted to, she couldn't move all of it in her lifetime, especially with her feeble arms. The massive god torso would be a sight to see, even broken in half and lying on the ground.

Tsubaki sat down on the ground and lead her back against the statue. Ran did the same and both of them looked at the shadow of the god on the ever still lake water. "How was he able to beat me even when he was tired. I had tried everything and even sneak attacked him, and I still lost." Her hands ran over her ankles. While they had healed, the scar that they had left on Tsubaki was still evident. She had lost her first real battle against another player. That's what they had been preparing for since the start of the game and she had fail utterly.

"Don't do that to yourself, he was hungry, battle tested and extremely vicious, anyone could have fallen to him." Ran stated as she reached over and petted her back in an attempt to sooth her hand calm her down. Tsubaki's arm was now over her face and a spring of tears were streaming down on her lap.

"No, Sinon was able to take him an, and she's younger than me. I have to get stronger." Tsubaki jumped to her feet and moved her arm off of her face. It still shined with the glistening of tears. "I will get stronger, I won't die here. I want to be in this game for as long as possible, to see everything. There's still some more of these wonders, right. I want to see every single one of them." Tsubaki declared this under the shadow of the god.

XXXX

Colossus of Rhodes is giantic

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next one(s) will be out in a week

Have a wonderful week

-Kirk


	228. Denial

March 11, 2024

-Sinon and Silica-

She had not moved since coming back from the prison. Sinon sat motionless on the couch looking down at her hands. To her, they were permanently red, drenched in the blood of those who had died from them. Some of the blood was freshly new while underneath that was some drained onto her hands, staining the skin crimson. Her eyes haven't blinked from getting back, glued to her hands they laid, she couldn't take her eyes off of them for the life of her.

On the table were two knives the same color as her hands. They have had some of the blood drip off of them onto the wooden table. Though she could have or even put them into her inventory, she couldn't bring herself to doing so. Sinon couldn't hide the weapons that had stolen the life of another. She deserved to stare at the for infinite, constantly dwelling on the actions she had taken, the actions that had lead them to their death, the actions that had made he kill them.

"Sinon." Silica's voice was soft as ever. Her usual cheerful upbeat tone was not present. She had also been at the raid on the Laughing Coffin and had witnessed her killing Gai. That's what she was, a killer, nothing more, nothing less. And now Silica knew that, why was she still here? No one wanted to be friend with a murder, or even be near one. That's why they had purged Laughing Coffin from Sword Art Online. They were were murders, the worst type of people, unredeemable in every single way. Now everyone knew that the only difference between her and them was her player marker.

"Sinon, talk." Her voice held more accersion than it had done previously but it was still devoid of any cheerfulness. The raid against Laughing Coffin must have taken all of that out of her, at least for the time being. N one was cheerful after seeing their best friend murder someone.

Sinon remained ever quite eluding a deafening silence off of her. However, her heart was beating faster than ever, she could almost feel it jump out of her chest. Even in the past, she had never felt this way. To he everything was loud, even the murmurs of people out sound sounded like a rock concert. If there had been a mouse it would have sound like a horde of stampeding elephants.

"Sinon." Her voice was soft and sweet. It was almost melchalory in a way, as if she could feel all the sadness coming off of Sinon, as if the sadness was seeping into her. Both of her hands were on Sinon's shoulders and she was leaning, looking down at Sinon. If it had been anyone else, she would have been to small to do so, but Sinon sitting down was just about the right size.

Looking up, Sinon saw Silica's incredibly soft and caring face. It reminded her of her mother, back when she had been young, the mother she wanted to remember. Not the one that had sent her to live on her own in an apartment. The one that would listen no matter how dumb her complaints were, no matter how tiresome she was. Unlike her mother who barely talked to her for years before she got stuck in this death game. It wouldn't surprise her if her mother hadn't even stepped into the hospital room where she assumed she was at the current moment.

Her head fell onto Silica's shoulders as she started to sob. Sinon had never been the one to cry but she had no better option for herself to do at the moment. It felt as though everything she had come to build herself upon had came crumble down, all of the infrastructure gone, years of work down the drain. She had no clue what to do, nothing she could reason within her mind made her feel any better. The inside of her head was a spiraling pit of doom that somehow continued to get worse and worse, even after she had thought it bottomed out. Nothing made sense to her at the current moment.

Silica's small fingers ran through her short hair. Her other hand slowly ran down her back. The combination of which felt incredibly soothing, more than words could ever express. She never thought that her back or head could cool her down just by the simple act of rubbing them, but they did. After nearly a minute of sobbing into Silica's shoulders, Sinon stopped.

"Thank you." Sinon said lightly, the taste of saliva still extremely prevalent in her mouth. Even though Silica had barely done anything, she still somehow managed to get her better far faster than Sinon would have, or anyone really.

"No problem, it's what friends do." Silica stated as she plopped down on the seat next to Sinon. She felt the couch cushion move a bit when she sat down but nothing major, Silica was too light to actually displace anything of real value. They sat in silence for a couple of moment's before Silica broke the silence. "Would you like to tell me about it?" Silica asked.

There was no malice in her voice and there was barely enough intrigued to convey that she actually wanted to know. However Sinon could tell that Silica wanted to know really badly. If Sinon had to guess why she would say it was because Silica wanted to help her out in the best way possible. The only way she could do that was if she actually knew what was going on. It almost all came spilling out at once but she barely stopped it for a moment's thought. However this didn't stop Sinon.

"I'm a killer, that's all I am, nothing but a killer. I clean that player with a single bit of remorse, not a bit of hesitation. I didn't even think about weather or not to capture him. Think about how useful he would've been if I hadn't killed him, but no I killed him, with those blades, I watched him disappear content, as if I had done nothing, wrong, I'm nothing but a murderer, a bloodthirsty rotten-" Silica had cut her off.

"THEN I AM ONE TOO!" Silica yelled over top of Sinon's run on sentence. "On that battlefield it was kill or be killed. You and I both choose the same, to kill." Silica said solemnly as she picked up the two knives and made them disappear. "But that doesn't mean we're killers, all that means is that were more interested in life than moral high ground. The people who we killed were killers, murderers and we aren't like them. We killed because we had to, not because we wanted to. You were content when he died not because you had killed him, but because he had not killed you. Sure maybe he would've helped out with find the escaped members but no one faults you. Everyone else would have done the same thing in that situation. You did the right thing, even if that thing was killing someone."

"Are you sure?' Sinon was voice was feeble. Only if she had this kind of talk in the past her life would have turned out to be very different but maybe there was a reason she was here now.

"One hundred percent. You don't feel great about and that's human, I feel the same. It shows you have remorse, that you aren't like them. We feel the pain of our actions while they feel none. Remember that, if you feel remorse after doing something bad, you're not a bad person or murderer in this case. Then you are just a person whose made a mistake, just like the rest of us. And Sinon, you did the right thing, got it?" Silica looked at Sinon with her eyes unflinching.

"Yes."

XXXX

Silica is great

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter will be up in a short while

Have a great day

-Kirk


	229. Discharge

March 11, 2024

-Kirito and Klein-

"Hey." Klein heard a young rather high voice behind him. There were many other players around him but Klein knew that it was for him. Although he didn't know Kirito all that well, there was a finite number of people that he actually interacted with. He was one of them by pure chance, back from the young days of Sword Art Online.

In front of him was the memorial of all of the names of the players inside the game, both dead and alive. Etched in the black marble was each player's name, if they were dead a line bisected it in half. The only thing that changed in this game if you died was a silly little line through a memorial that was so far out of the way. Everyone who had died deserve much more, each deserved their own plate of marble, with their name, not just the nickname they had given themselves but their actual name, maybe then would they be actually honored.

"Hey." Klein said as he took a step back to see Kirito. Even in the years of perpetual non aging that they had gone through in the game, it still seemed like Kirito had grown years since then. His back was completely straight and while his face did support a youthful smile, one was not present. Like everyone, the game had changed him, for better or for worse. The Kirito that stood next to him was not the beater the game had came to know, but a battle hardened solo player. One of the best.

"How many do you think have died?" Klein asked as he surveyed the memorial. There was quite a few players with them there. Most of them were front line players, honoring the dead that had just fallen. The rest of his guild had been there just moments before, but had left Klein behind to grieve in silence. Klein couldn't tell whether he was grateful of not that he had gotten the silence. He felt like a failure of a leader, five of his players died in one battle, what was he supposed to do now.

"According to Argo, just about six thousand of us have died." Kirito stated with a note of pain as the number six thousand left his mouth. That number was way to high. Did Kayaba know that he was going to kill almost every player that came into the game when he designed. Or did he design it to kill everybody. It could be he hadn't imagined that something like Laughing Coffin would come to exist, they sure killed a fair amount.

"Everyone has lost someone, haven't they?" Klein said as he looked around at everyone else. Some of them were on the verge of crying while others were. Some were standing resolute in the shadow of those who had died while others were kneeling on the ground ever staring at the crossed out name. Then there was him and Kirito.

Kirito walked up to the memorial and looked at for a couple moments before it seemed that he had found the name he had been looking for. Once he did, he fell to one knee and talked to the name for a moment before standing back up and walking back to Klein. Even Kirito, who was a solo player that got close to practically everyone, had someone who had died here. This game had torn people apart from each other in more ways than one.

"I have started to avenge his death. " Kirito stated to Klein as he looked over the wall once more. Like almost everyone else, he was searching for familiar crossed out names. Klein could tell that more than once he had found one. Whenever he did, Kirito hesitated for a moment before slightly bowing his head. It seemed to be his own way of honoring the dead. For everyone of his guild that had died, Klein and the rest of his guild had given small funerals for them. Even some of the bystanders took part in it.

"I'm sorry for your loss." Kirito said once he had gone over the wall a couple of times. Over the couple of times he had talked to Kirito nothing like this had ever came up. Their relationship was basically built on a series of small conversations that could easily be classified as small talk. And yet, somehow, Klein could tell that Kirito meant all of it, even if his face was stoic.

"Thank you." Klein stated as he walked up to their names again. Somehow it didn't seem like there was ever a way he could honor them. They had died a samurai's death, in battle never giving a single inch to the enemy. It was how they had always wanted to die, even in other games were they could just be revived. There was no point in dying your back to the enemy. Even on the verge of death you had to fight to get that extra hit in. It could mean the difference between life and death for anyone.

"How long had you known them for?" Kirito asked, although his head never turned from the memorial, it was a sight that kept your eyes glued to it for as long as possible. If you took your eyes off of it, what was the point of being at this somber memorial anyways. The only reason you would come was to honor the dead, taking you eyes off of them for something else wouldn't honor at all.

"We were buddies throughout high school and college. Our games kept us together even though we all went differents paths. The first time I saw them in person for five years was when we bought this game on it's release. We stayed up and camped out at the store, we were the first one's in line too. Those twelve hours without anyone else was awesome, their my best friends." Klein ended on a solemn note. Would anything go back to the way it was afterwards, how could the guild survive without half of its members?

"Must've been nice, I had basically been by myself for most of my time when playing games. That's when I got into the beat testing for this game. I met my best friend, Coper there. We even met up in the real world a couple of times but when we came into this game everything suddenly got more real. On floor twelve he was killed Laughing Coffin, in specific PoH. He'll finally be able to rest in peace once we get him too." Kirito said as he punched his hand.

"There still some of them out there, we're going to get them out of this game, they have done enough damage already. Isn't that right Kirito?" Klein stated. The ten our so members that were still left needed to be taken care of before they start to kill again or enacted their revenge.

"That's right, We'll not rest until the threat of Laughing Coffin is gone. Kayaba may have been the one lock us inside the game but the are the ones killing us. There's no way that I could stand back idly watching them do so. Most of the front line feels that way too. We're going to start actively searching for the remaining members. Just a close knit group of people, Me Asuna, Argo and about seven others. I am inviting you to join us." Kirito stated as a silence overtook them both in the moment as Kirito was waiting for a response.

"There's no way I could turn you down, who all will we be work with?" Klein asked as he turned to Kirito.

"It was Keita and Alanza's idea, the invited all of the strongest people they trusted, albeit me kind of begrudgingly. You're the last one on the list. Others are Asuna, Argo, Sinon, Silica, Saffi, Tsubaki and Ran." Klein nodded in response to each name, he knew each and every single one of them.

"When do we meet?" Klein asked.

XXXX

Stuff is coming together

Hope you all liked this chapter

Next chapter(s) will be up in a week

Have a splendid week

-Kirk


	230. Hold

March 11, 2024

-Kirito and Asuna-

"I'm sorry." Asuna stated as she sat across from Kirito. They were eating dinner at the current moment like they did once or twice a week. This had been going on for a while now and it was Asuna favorite part of the week, even if it was just small talk that they partake in or even meaningless ranting. Somehow talking to or rather screaming at Kirito always made it seem better and never did he once complain, he even sometimes voiced his opinion.

However, this time it felt leagues different than it had ever done before and Asuna did not like it one bit. Instead of the somewhat cheerful yet seculse Kirito, he was a lot more tense and pensive at the moment. More than anything it didn't suit his face out all, it shadowed much of his face making him look a lot more serious and sadder than he usually felt. In addition to that his conversation skills had gone from actually helpful to yes's and no's. It made Asuna feel a lot more unneasy than she wanted to be, or at least more than she was with Kirito usually.

This was probably due to what the rest of the day and week had been beforehand. All week in the front lines was a bunch a covert missions to get everyone prepared for the attack on Laughing Coffin. Both her and Kirito were two players who had a job in those missions. While hers was getting around most of the Knights of the Blood Oath ready for the raid without telling them what their training was for, Kirito's was a lot different. For what she knew, he was in charge of all of the behind scenes things, stuff like mapping and surveillance of Laughing Coffin and the dungeon that they hid inside.

All of the missions throughout the week had worn him down quite a bit, he had told it to her himself but Asuna knew that the bigger culprit was the raid that they had just took part in. Not only had he seen soo many different players die, ones that he knew and ones that he didn't, he killed some of Laughing Coffin. From what Asuna had seen, he had killed two members of Laughing Coffin. It would have been a lot more if he hadn't taken up a duel with Zaza in the middle of it.

"It's not that." Kirito said as he stopped twirling his fork between his fingers in a very unsucessful manner, at least in getting noodles on to it. He then proceed to place it painly in his bowl and looked up. Next to his bowl were his chopsticks, never even touch, which was unusual. He typically liked to use them but today he had taken to not even giving them a second glance, according to him he was to tired for that kind of coordination.

Asuna placed her chopsticks neatly across the top of he bowl and turned her attention to Kirito. Unlike him however, she had actually been eating. In fact most of her food was gone while Kirito's had barely been touched, even their waters mirrored this. Then again she hadn't killed anyone so maybe it didn't affect her as much as it had done for Kirito.

"Why did Laughing Coffin start?" Kirito asked as he looked down at his bowl of soup. Since his contained no vegetables even to start off it reflected his image upwards. This took Asuna by surprise, she had been expecting him to hold something against for having to step in between her had Zaza but it seemed as though he hadn't even thought about it at all. As if what he had done was second nature to him, maybe that was why he was taking it hard.

"Maybe because they just wanted to kill people or maybe they had a screw loose or something." Asuna came up with the explanation that made most sense in her head in the couple of second she had given herself to think. All of the psychology class on humans that she had taken couldn't prepare her for this question.

"I had thought that too but back when we first started to see them pop up, when they attacked me and Coper all the way down on floor eight." Asuna remember that, but it was all the way in the back of her memory. If Kirito had not said the name Coper, she would have had a hard time remembering his name at all. But she remember him now, the player for her that was the classic version of a beater, not Kirito. She had not thought about him in a long time. It was because of him that Kirito had left to go on his own for a while. Her hands curled into fists slightly before they relaxed. There was no reason to get angry at that now.

"But there has been at least one hundred of them throughout the course of the game, and their numbers will only go upwards, there's always another one that turns into a killer." Kirito looked down at his hands for a second before closing them and moving them into his lap. Asuna opened her mouth as if she had an idea of what to say in response to that, but she did so reluctantly she closed her mouth. Maybe her brother could have responded to such a statement but she could not.

"Why did Laughing Coffin even form, why was there soo many people that wanted to kill each other in this game, at least one percent of us wanted to kill each other when we found out this was a death game. What type of people were put into this game if one percent of us have absolutely no problem with killing each other?" KIrito asked as he looked up to Asuna.

"Some of them doubt that it is an actual death game while others believe that we aren't ever going to make it out of here anyways. Though I think most of them just wanted to kill people when they got the game." That was the most sound conclusion that Asuna had came to. Maybe some of the players in the game were just seriously messed up, beyond repair for some of them. It was a good thing that most of the players weren't like that.

"What makes a killer, is it the fact that you have killed or the fact that you want to. Isn't someone that seeks out murder more dangerous than the person who doesn't but ends up killing someone." Kirito stated as he picked up his fork and started to spin noodles onto it, this time he had actual success. "And yet the players that we are able to capture are the ones who kill not the ones who want to kill." Kirito stated as he put food in his mouth.

"Well you can't just go around jailing people that you think might kill someone, just because they want doesn't mean that they will, everyone has had at least one time when there was someone who they wanted to kill. All anyone can ever do is catch the ones who are crazy enough to attack on those urges. We did the same except there is soo many of them in this game that we had to take more drastic measures, I'm sure if they had near one hundred murderers organized in Tokyo they would have staged something near to what we had done." Asuna had stated as she looked into her bowl to find it empty.

"That's fair, let's just hope that once we find the rest of them, we don't have to do it over again, I can only imagine what we would have to do if we did. This is a pain I never wanted to have to experience again, cheers to a better tomorrow, one without the dangers of Laughing Coffin." Kirito raised his almost full glass of water.

"And to you, nice job on taking on Zaza." Asuna as she picked up her almost empty glass a clinked it against Kirito's.

XXXX

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

This day is winding down

Next chapter will be up in a few

Have a great day

-Kirk


	231. Hue

March 11, 2024

-Zaza, Grimlock, and Zack-

"Too bad you didn't catch all of us." Zaza laughed as he leaned against the wall of his cell. He had been placed directly across from Zack and now it seemed as though he was going to make the most out of it. This was going to make his stay in this prison even more like hell than it would be without him. As if a jail could get any worse. Zack rolled his eyes and stretched on his very much uncomfortable bed, trying to ignore whatever taunts was going to come from the other cells.

It was now night time and the guard personale (the players that probably had nothing better to do with their lives yet weren't front line players) were not patrolling the inside. Most likely the little players that were guarding it were guarding the entrances on the outside, most likely fast asleep. If it was Zack on that duty then that is what he would be doing. However being on the inside, he was awake rather than asleep.

To be fair all he wanted to do was sleep at the moment but his mind kept betraying him, forcing him to stay awake. He did not even have the chance to somewhat drift into sleep before waking up, it was more along of the lines of, brain would not shut the hell up. Images of the past battle kept popping up in his mind as well as every single one of the people he had killed, even the most recent ones. Those red players were more persistent than the rest, as if they wanted to make his life a living hell despite, well, being in hell.

Zack shifted uncomfortably onto his side. Now his pillow was covered over his ears, hopefully none of the comments from Zaza would reach him now. The last thing he needed on top of his insomnia, was Zaza, especially being how he was at the moment. If he was anything like how he was when he had trained him, this was going to be the worst year of his life.

"My lord." Zack could hear both of Zaza's shoes hit the ground as he walked to, presumably the bars of his jail cell. "DO YOU THINK YOU CAN TUNE ME OUT!" Zaza yelled through bars. Sounds of the others groaning indicated they had been rudely awakened by this action. However in the next couple of seconds nobody made so much as a sigh of complaint. Even inside a jail cell, Zaza held an incredible amount of power.

As if he was trying to act that he had slept through that question, Zack did not make a single reaction to it. The only movement he had actually made was just a slight move of the leg into a slighter position. Maybe then he could achieve sleep but if not sleep than at least slightly comfortable time on the very much uncomfortable bed.

"ALL OF YOU, WE HAVE A TRAITOR IN OUR MISTED!" Zaza shouted at all of the other red players around him. Zack doubted it was directed at him but it was most likely to annoy him. From Zack's knowledge he was the only traitor in Laughing Coffin, at least at the moment. If Zack's suspicions came true then they would eventually have another. But it would be a long time until Johnny Black changed sides and sold the rest of them out. Enough time for a significant amount of people to lose their lives at the hand on Laughing Coffin. At least now he could rest easy knowing it wasn't him doing the killing. Somehow that didn't make him feel much better.

"The famous Zack, my first apprentice, has turned us all in, including himself for some reason." Zack could almost feel the disdain in Zaza's voice, especially when he spit out the word apprentice. This statement, while not yelled like the last two it was the worst out of them. Now all of the other red players were up a rowdy, more than ready to through their personal array of curse words and racial slurs out him, even if they made no sense at all.

"STAND YOU TRAITOR, STAND!" Somehow he had an even louder voice than he did before, as he had been saving it for such an occasion. This voice seemed to echoed of the walls of the prison. Once it was done echoing off of walls, the other red players started yelling at him to stand also. Some louder than Zaza and others used various phrases that really ended in the central idea of, stand the hell up now. Of course this was being yelled because very single letter need to be stretched for Zack to hear it, right? Well that was what it sound like to Zack because believe it or not pillows do not stop noise whatsoever, in fact it sounded louder to him.

"I said stand, it's the least you can do for the people that you just betrayed." Zaza's voice barely came through beneath the berrage of constant yells to stand up. Even though his was without a doubt, the quitests it was his voice that got him to stand up. It wasn't that he wanted to, quite the opposite as of right now. Zack needed to get it out of the way though. If he didn't do it then they would yell at him until he did. Might as get to at least having a chance at sleeping soon rather than later.

"And he stands, Everyone give this traitor your fullest of attentions as he apologizes for betraying us then promise that he will let us torture him to death once we escape." Zaza grinned as he looked over at Zack. Now Zack was frozen on the spot. These were the people that he was about to spend roughly a year and he was about to piss off the hole lot of them. And this was only day one. Oh, how the rest of the year was going to suck.

"Have fun getting out of here." Zack turned around ignore whatever the lot of them were yelling at him now and just plopped himself down on to his bed. If they were pissed off then at least he would get some enjoyment out of the reactions from them. That might make his stay in the jail go from down right unbearable to mostly unbearable.

"I'm glad you bring that up." Zaza stated with probably the most creepy glee he had heard from anyone in Laughing Coffin for a while. It was definitely a new level of creep that Laughing Coffin had shown itself to him yet. For Zack it was on the level of clown pedophile, extremely creepy no matter what way you looked at it. All though he was talking about a group of elite tortures, killers, and blackmailers so it really wasn't outside of their realm of expertise.

"This prison was built by players inside a town. It was not here at the start of the game. There was no way to capture a player for a long period of time before this came around." Zaza flicked his finger into the jail and a resounding cling resonated. Then he punched the metal bar. Other than the dull hit of flesh against metal there was a slight creaking noise.

"This place isn't impenetrable. It has flaws just like everything else, there's a way to get out of here. Our leader, PoH is well aware of this notion and is going to get us out of here at the first opportunity. Meanwhile we'll have to wait in here for our day to come. Once we are all out of here we while be greeted with weapons this world has never seen. Then we will bring chaos like this world has never seen. They will rue the day when Laughing Coffins strikes back. Today is just the prelude to how many people will die on that day. I swear here and now, that the number of players I kill on that day will reach triple digits, TILL THEN, WE WAIT FOR OUR CALL!" Zaza shouted with a deathly grin on his face.

XXXX

Laughing Coffin is standing strong still

Hope you all liked this chapter

Next chapter(s) will be up in a week

Have a wonderful week

-Kirk


	232. Huddle

March 17, 2024

-Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Silica, Klein, Argo, Ran, Keita, Alanza, Saffi And Tsubaki-

Klein walked into the room with a the sounds of clashing blade covering everything else. It was as loud as a real battle would have been but upon closer inspection it was just Ran and Tsubaki dueling, quite vigorously if he could say so. Neither one of them wasn't giving it their all and it was probably the most intense dual he had ever seen. Even more so than seeing Kirito go up against Heathcliff and win.

While Kirito and Heathcliff's dual had been Kirito outspeeding Heathcliff the entire time trying to find an opening, this one was anything but. Both Ran and Tsubaki were some of the fastest players in the game. The only player Klein to confidently say was fastest was the Lightning Flash Asuna and they even gave her a run for her money. On top of that both players seemed to predict what the other one was doing next and act accordingly. At some times Klein swore that Tsubaki was predicting Ran's predictions.

However, Tsubaki had the obvious edge due in part to her weapon of choice or maybe, her familiar. Her familiar, that she had name Charlotte, was her weapon of choice. It was basically a shapeshifting blob, that from what everyone else could tell, could transforming into anything. From what could only be described as flying four by four to the everyday lance. While this did give her an advantage, it seemed as though Ran was able to hold her own.

Ran had one of the most unusual fighting styles over the entirety of Aincrad, maybe with the exception of Saffi and her bag of random goodies. From what Klein could see she used parts of other people's styles combined to make one. While that was impressive, it was not the part that made her be able to take on the wide array of attacks and defenses that Tsubaki had at her disposal. Not only did she use other players attacks, she never used them more than once. Even at the speed of their dueling, she still managed to dish out different attack after different attack.

Then Klein saw Ran turn gears in an instant, she had obviously seen an opening. It was more likely that she had seen a way to finish the dual as this was the first time she had she changed so drastically without Tsubaki's involvement. In response, Tsubaki also changed but she phased into her defensive stance but by the time that she had done so Ran was already on top of her. The fastest flurry of swords then commenced and ended in a mere couple of seconds. This part of the duel had been way too fast for Klein to catch all of it, but he did catch the two parts at the end. One was Tsubaki getting Kicked in the gut and thrown into the air. And the last one was as Tsubaki hit the ground, Ran elbowed her, making her back slam into the ground and not get up in an instant.

"I think that was the closest you had gotten yet." Ran stated as she held out her hand for Tsubaki to grab. She had already sheathed her sword and made her appearance a little more presentable with the patting of her hands.

"I have to train harder." Tsubaki stated once she got up in a defiant sort of way. Something told Klein that she wasn't too happy about losing to Ran in what seemed like a streak of losses. Charlotte, she shapeshifting little friend retreated up her arm and out of sight. Klein thought about wear exactly it hard retreated to for a couple of seconds then dropped it just as fast as he had thought about it, with his ending thought being, I shouldn't be thinking about this.

"We should get going, it's about to get started." Ran had a fair point. He had been invited to this meeting and all he had done thus far was stare at a duel that really held no significance in the proceedings of what was going to be happening in the meeting. Maybe he shouldn't be here but it was his duty to his fallen guild members and lifelong friends to come here and seek out the rest of Laughing Coffin. How would be be able to look at the remaining members of his guild with having nothing done to avenge them? He needed to do this, if not for his dead friends, himself, or even the rest of his guild, then for everyone else in this death game that could live in a safer place with them tainting the world.

"Hello and thank you all for coming at short notice." It was Keita, most likely the youngest of them there, apart from Ran who was undoubtedly the youngest. She was barely even a teen based off her looks alone. While her personality did make her seem just a bit older, it wasn't but much. They all took a seat on the medium size circular table that had been off to the side of a rather big room.

"I'm glad you all could make it, I'm Griselda but you all know me as Alanza." The woman who Klein had seen with Keita had taken her time in the spotlight now. Instead of Keita, she had continued sitting when speaking and barely used a voice louder than what seemed to be her normal one. She was undoubtedly more calm and collected than Keita had ever seemed to be.

"I had a run in with Laughing Coffin back in the day. My husband had sent them on me to kill me and, obviously," She gestured to herself. "I'm still alive. The player had had attacked me was a player who went as Johnny Black, and when he attacked he was a green player. However when he did attack, he killed another player in a tree, what I guess to be another member of Laughing Coffin. He then proceeded to tell me to go into hiding and gave me an item, and a quite expensive one at that. It made it so I could permanently change my name. So I changed my name, dumped my inventory into my husband's and deleted my friend list.. When I did this I had two goals in mind, kill my husband and bring Laughing Coffin to justice." Her voice sounded a little more disgusted at certain points more than other but it was nothing to drastic. She had a lot more control than most people did, especially since she had just talked about her husband betraying her and the plot to her murder.

"Not too long after I had gone into hiding in the mid level floors, I came across Keita. He was doing nothing but leveling and had no purpose. Now I know that he had lost all of his friends due to an unfortunate accident and after spending a couple of days consoling him, I told him of my problems. He was more than helpful in both bring Laughing Coffin to justice and my plot against my Grimlock, even if he did dissuade me from killing him off." Griselda looked at Keita from a moment with a smile before turning back.

"However our plot against Laughing Coffin did not go perfectly. Someone had leaked our plans to Laughing Coffin and as a result of it a substantial amount of their Guild had escaped, including my savior, Johnny Black. However, we have another plan, a harder plan yet one that we both believe has a better result at succeeding. Our last plan failed because too many people were involved so this time we gathered a select number of players, you nine were the chosen few. With you nine we are going to find the last of Laughing Coffin a squash them. But before we get into specifics, I want your word that you won't betray us, no matter what." Griselda commanded as the room went into an uneasy silence.

XXXX

Are you ready for them to get down to business

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter will be up in a few

Have an extravagant week

-Kirk


	233. Honor

March 17, 2024

-Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Silica, Klein, Argo, Ran, Keita, Griselda, Saffi And Tsubaki-

"I pledge my allegiance to you, I won't so much as lie to either of you." It was Kirito, he hadn't missed a beat, not soo much as a moment of hesitation. To Klein, it seemed as though he knew what he was going to say no matter what, as though he had planned it out. Maybe it had been his plan to say it here no matter what. Did he have to atone for something in the past, he probably did. Klein betted it had to do with the guild he had joined, and why he wasn't a part of it know.

"As do I." Asuna was quick to follow behind Kirito. Though to be fair she had always been as they were kind of two peas in a pod. Klein followed the two of them so he wouldn't forget to say it also. All of the people in the room right now were to interesting to Klein and he thought that if he didn't do it now then he would have forgot to do it at all.

"I'll find as much information as possible to take out Laughing Coffin. I pledge my allegiance to you two." Argo bowed he had as she declare allegiance. Klein never really had much to do with the information broker but he knew that out of all of them, she was the most important by a large margin even compared to some of the strongest players in the game. The likes of Kirito and Asuna couldn't do what she could. While they could to take out almost any foe, Argo had the sole ability to not only find them, but to put them in scenarios at which they would be in a disadvantage.

"Pina and I will never betray us, and Sinon won't also." Both Silica and Pina looked at Sinon for a moment before she agreed. But before she did agree, Sinon rolled her eyes at Silica for a moment but agreed with her statement none the less. Sinon seemed to be the most reluctant out of everyone to be there but somehow Klein knew that there was nothing else she would rather be doing. It seemed as though Sinon had multiple reason why she was there. These were probably what kept her intrigued.

"Not like I have anything better to me doing or anything." Saffi stated as she kicked back in her chair and put her feet onto the table. Both Silica and Sinon eyes darted towards her as her feet hit the table. Silica's was more of, that looks comfortable, I wish I had the audacity to do that. Maybe she didn't use the word audacity but it was somewhere along the lines of that. While Sinon on the other had was basically glaring daggers at her superior.

"I'll try my best, as will Ran." Tsubaki said as she bowed her head. The two of the were probably going to be the most helpful players along with Kirito. Since they weren't in guilds they could probably carry out the most missions out of anyone. Even though both Asuna and Sinon were just as strong, their allegations to their respective guilds would probably hold back their efficiency to the cause. Even though that would hold them back they would probably do a lot more than Klein ever could, he didn't he even know why he was here to begin with.

"Thank you all of that. I know that it might seem unnecessary and childish but in this world we don't know who to trust. I hope that we made the right decision about choosing you all." Griselda said as she placed her hands on the table. She was smiling for some reason as she looked at Keita. They were hoping that everyone hear would agree to their terms as everyone here probably had their purpose, even himself, Klein.

"Alright, let's now get down to business, we have stuff to get started." Keita stood up as he started to speak. He had a lot more of a authoritative tone to his voice but somehow lacked the impressive air that Griselda had with her speaking voice. Even without trying she could probably make kids sit down in an instant. It reminded Klein of a grade school teacher, even though he hadn't been in grade school for forever. Maybe that was her job in the real world, if it wasn't then it should be.

"We were just informed by Heathcliff and Diavel that they will not be continuing the raid against Laughing Coffin. They had tallied up the total casualties in that one day and it was nowhere near the number that they had anticipated. According to them, they couldn't continue clearing the game with the amount of casualties repeated once again. They henceforth resign from the battle against Laughing Coffin and leave the fight up to us. They hope that with the help that they had given that we will be able to purge the rest of Laughing Coffin." Keita said with much more than a taste of disdain.

"I'm so sorry for my guild leaders, I will speak to the personal and try to change their perspective and maybe send some monetary help." Asuna stated as she looked around hastily but stopped once she saw Griselda with her hand up.

"Thank you for your concern but we have made peace with that fact. They have in fact helped the two of us out with gear but I don't they have anything that would help any of you out." Griselda said as she looked around at everyone us. With a nod of the head and small gestures like that each of the agreed. "Besides we have a different method of taking on Laughing Coffin this time. We have no need of a great guild backing us up." Griselda stated with an air of confidence. Asuna regressed back into her chair, a little defeated.

"Let's get down to business, there was a reason why we have called you all here, we want to give you all out your quote 'roles' and some of you your first missions but we have no leads on Laughing Coffin at the moment." Keita stated with a bit of sadness near the end. Apparently it pained him that he could not give out information on Laughing Coffin. Klein could see where he was coming from, if he was going to call out a meeting he would very much prefer to have information to tell them than not.

"Argo, you have the most important job, search for any information on Laughing Coffin, a player named Johnny Black and another one named Lux. They are two members of Laughing Coffin and besides PoH the only ones we know of. Once you have gotten something, anything on them we would like you to tell us." Keita stated as he looked at Argo, She gave no verbal response but her nod told him everything he had wanted to hear.

"Saffi, Silica, and Sinon, you are all members of Storm of Centuries and we trust your guild the most out of the big guilds. We have no mission for you right now but it would be imprudent to know that you could back us up in a moment's notice, can you do that?" Griselda asked Saffi and Sinon more than Silica really. Both of them nodded almost in unison.

"Klein, I would like you to, without telling your guild, map out all of the dungeons, down to the weird nooks and crannies of them. Especially the weird ones that the usual dungeon mappers wouldn't spend their time with. You can take you guild on this trips but I urge you to not tell them the purpose." Griselda stated as she looked at Klein with a soft look. If he didn't instantly agree this would change his decision almost instantly.

"Lastly, Kirito, Asuna, Ran and Tsubaki, whenever you have the chance, please explore the mid levels and lowers levels to find their base. I understand that you need to train a lot and you have your guild duties Asuna, but whenever you can, please search the lower floors for their base. If you run into them, please do not in engage but if you have I trust you can hold your own. We choice you four since you can easily hold your own even against multiple players." Keita stated as he looked at the four players. Granted he only looked at Kirito once but he did look at him. All four of them nodded.

"We take great pleasure in working with each and every one of you, may we take out Laughing Coffin before any more lives are lost." Griselda stated with an air of finality.

XXXX

The team is gathering together

Hope you all enjoyed them all

Next chapter(s) will be up in a week

Have a great day

-Kirk


	234. Hindsight

March 22, 2024

-Zaza, Grimlock, Kazuma and Zack-

"So why did you do it?" Kazuma was sitting just outside of Zack's cell, legs crossed and patiently waiting for his brother to finally stand up. Granted he had been asleep when he had come in but what kind of person sleeps at four in the afternoon. Especially with the slurs and loud comments being thrown almost every single second, by multiple people no less. He had absolutely no clue how Zack had managed to fall asleep during it.

"He won't talk to you, he knows just how much you had wanted to kill him on that day. That you had absolutely no faith that he was actually trying to help you. Then yet again, he would put their faith in a screw up like him." Zaza said from behind. Both of Kazuma's fists clenched upon hearing the voice. Even the likes of a bulwark of curses and some slurs that he had never even heard before did not get him to be this pissed off. It seemed as though Zaza just knew how to push the right buttons at the right time. He was probably the most insufferable person in the game.

"Ignore him, he's just pissed off." Zack stated faintly. He was now sitting on his bed rubbing his eyes. Though he could barely see them, Kazuma noticed a fair amount of lines that had not been there beforehand. It was probably the sleep deprivation that had sent him to sleep at this hour, not anything else. That made sense, there was absolutely no way then any of them were actually getting good sleep, much less the traitor.

"Just as pissed off as you were when he murdered your girlfriend, I think she deserved that one, she was probably a slut, who else would sleep with the likes of you." Kazuma could tell that Zaza's grin bore a huge smile from the phrase that he had just made. Somehow, his fists clenched even further, like that was possible. He could feel his nails digging into the skin. If this was the real world then he would have blood running down his arm. But then he heard a series of several loud cracks come from Zack's cell. His brother had just cracked his back then let out a loud sigh.

"The only women you have slept with are prostitutes, sluts couldn't even bare the sight of you." A light chuckle end this phrase from Zack. He then proceeded to crack every part of his body that he had not cracked yet. This included, but was not limited to, his fingers, his toes, his hip and even his jaw. Each and every single one made a loud cracking noise.

"Just ignore him, getting him to shut up is like a godsend." Zack said down right in behind the bars of his cell and looked his brother straight in the eyes. Zaza was still making comments that made Kazuma's blood boil, perhaps more than some of the other ones did but he did not so much a clenched his hands from them. Kazuma merely tuned them out and returned Zack's eye contact. "What did you ask, I was kind of asleep when you came in and I didn't really catch it?" Zack asked calmly.

"I was wondering why you joined Laughing Coffin?" Kazuma asked plainly and without any restraint. Even if it would take all day for Zack to give him an actually answer or a meaningful one, Kazuma would wait for it. Now that he knew what his brother had been doing he needed to know why. It didn't matter how much time Kazuma would waste inside this hellhole. It would be worth it.

"Honestly, there was nothing else productive I could do." Zack stated plainly but as he looked at Kazuma he realized that an answer like that would not help him at all. "I couldn't join the front lines, you were there and you absolutely hated the sight off me. Nor did I want to make it better with you, to be honest I didn't see a reason to or even how to do so. But I wanted to make Aincrad a better place, help out the people that couldn't help out themselves. Then I heard about Laughing Coffin." Zack stated plainly.

"So you wanted to help out everyone by clearing Laughing Coffin of off this world then?" Kazuma asked. It was as he had suspected but he didn't exactly know if the answer helped him at all. The answer was among the best that Zack could give but Kazuma just wanted something more concrete. If he was going to forgive his brother for all that he had done, he would need something a little more concrete than, there was nothing else I could do.

"That was the reason why I joined Laughing Coffin. I must say that I didn't expect it to be so far nor the amount of people I would have to kill. Being a one man army against Laughing Coffin wouldn't cut it, I would have to get the front lines to attack them then make it so Laughing Coffin had a disadvantage, and that's exactly I had done, though it was a bit harder than I had expected due to him and his disciple. They are quite the duo to face and I thought I was going die there." Zack stated as he ran his hand up his arm. The last time Kazuma had seen him, it had been covered in cuts and gashes the entire way up it.

"Was there ever a moment where you had thought to give up on the task you had given yourself. When everything was just to had to had and seemed impossible?" His brother was a quitter before anything else. He had a problem following things through to the end and Kazuma would be surprised if he did this time without a single thought telling him to do otherwise, it was too ingrained in his mind for him to do that.

Zack sighed and averted his eyes. "Constantly. I thought that I could run away and everything would be like nothing had happened. Or maybe even I could join the front lines with my new skill and the game could be completed even faster. However, I never once acted on any of these urges. While my mind was telling to act on them my heart was telling me the exact opposite. It was telling that back out now would prove that I was nothing other than a screw up. Even in a make believe world, all I could do was screw up more and more. That I couldn't do anything right, that it would be better without me even in this world, and the real world too. My blade had taken the lives of too many people to back out and feel nothing. Everytime I thought about quitting, I knew that I had to fight even harder to ensure that it happened. If not then everyone I had killed to make my dream a reality would have died for nothing and that just didn't sit right with me. Even if my dream did become a reality that wouldn't be enough to atone for everything I had done. I'll wait in this cell till the day this game is beaten, and then I'll make something of myself." Zack stated.

"Thank you." This was said after a couple of moments of thinking over everything that had happened and everything that Zack had just said. Kazuma reached through the bars and grabbed Zack's hand. "I'll make sure that this game is beaten if that is the last thing I do. Then once we're out, help you get back onto your feet, I'll get you a job somewhere, just promise me one thing, Don't run away again." Kazuma stated seriously.

"You got it." Zack smiled.

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A little bit more insight to Zack

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter will be up in a few

Have a great day

-Kirk


	235. Handiness

March 28, 2024

-Diavel-

Diavel felt his sword fly through the air. If a monster had been standing were he had stabbed it would have died but there was online the hollow programed air in its place. To be fair, if there was a monster in the middle of his study in the middle of a town, he would have bigger issues to worry about, such as how in the world, did this monster get all the way into town. Though yet again, what did it matter anyway, he had bigger fish to fry at the moment anyways.

The end of his sword scrapped the ground as he went into his next attack, he needed to be stronger than he was at the moment. If he could be bested by a player then there was no way he was going to be able to lead a group of players into a boss battle against and enemy that not only had probably somewhere around a hundred times his heath but also could two shot you no matter the armor you were wearing. He had been bested by multiple players and he needed to show that he was still strong enough to lead. Strong enough so that other strong players would follow him, call him leader or boss.

In the raid against laughing Coffin soo many players had died, soo many of his players had died. His sword made a loud crashing noise into the wall as he lost focus of where exactly in his attack he was. So many players, some of the strongest and chrasmic players he had ever met and now it was as though there was no sign of them. The only sign that they had lived was a stupid memorial with their names crossed out.

Why did it have to be this way, why did the game have to kill, why did it have to be a death game? Even if it wasn't then this game would be still the best, or amoung the best game on the market. But no, this would forever taint the virtual reality genre, leaving it in shambles and probably wouldn't ever be able to regain the footing that this game had destroyed. And for what, Why had Kayaba made a death game? To have laughs, to have chuckles? The man was a completely psychopath.

Echoes of Diavel's sword hitting the ground spread throughout hit room as he dropped his sword and fell onto the ground. How could he inspire players that had lost faith in him. It had been his idea to help out with the Laughing Coffin raid, and the all knew it. Heathcliff on the other hand had been completely against, probably for good reasons too but now that they had lost twenty two of their friends, Heathcliff's point was becoming even more understandable.

It wasn't the first time he had made a mistake either. Diavel remembers pushing the front lines faster and faster when the game had just came out and they finally found the floor one boss. Over two thousands players had died in month and they had absolutely nothing to show for it, well of course, they had a fifth of a memorial covered with lines now, but that was hardly anything anyone wanted to think about. Going there was a like giving god a licence to make you cry.

Diavel stood back up and looked around the room. It was barren except for a desk and a chair. It reminded Diavel of the huge offices he would see in real life, the ones the super high up and corrupt businessmen would be using, but he wasn't one of them. They were fighting for the little guys, the players that couldn't fight for themselves. That's what the front lines were all about, fighting to get everyone out, even the ones who couldn't do it for themselves, especially them.

He walked over to his desk and sat down for a couple moment's before letting his head collapse onto the table. Why was he apart of the front lines, why was he still here, fighting alongside players that were soo much stronger than he is? It would be soo easy to sheath his sword and not even give it a second glance. Leave so a better person could take his place. Maybe he could ask Kirito where he had been hiding all that time and hide there. Or maybe he could go down to floor one and help out all of the kids who had gotten stuck in the game and were too scared and young to fight to get out.

Both of his hands smack the table and after a while, he used them to push his head off the table. It was three hours until the next boss battle would commence and he was nowhere near prepared. Neither his state of mind nor his actually fighting skill was up to par. He was going to let his guild down again, there was no reason that he was one of the guild leaders. Giving his position off to Asuna would be much better than him staying in it. All of the players would fight tooth and nail for her, unlike him.

During the Laughing Coffin raid all he had done was lose to two players that had ganged up on him. Both of them were nothing of note and he knew that both of them were killed but not before they had easily overwhelmed him. He wasn't one of the strongest players in the game, two players had brought him to the brink of death and he was only able to survive thanks to a little girl.

Easily, Diavel moved his hand to opened his menu then he flipped to the skills section of it and stared at one of them for a while. Why had been him to get this skill? Heathcliff or even Kazuma as generic and cookie cutter as he was, would be better than himself. And yet the game told him that this skill was his to use and only his. This was impossible, why did he, one of the weakest front line players have one of the strongest skills in the game. It made no sense to him.

Finally, after what had felt like hours, Diavel stood up and pushed back in his uncomfortable chair. If he got back in the real world there was no way he would be able to have a boring desk job. If he had to sit for more than thirty minutes he would kill someone. Then yet again, he did it at school for soo many years so he could endure it and be able to survive. Diavel motioned to close his menu but before that he did one thing, he equipped the skill.

Maybe it was the game way of telling that he could lead a guild, he just needed a little push to get it done, right? Well that was what he had landed one after quite a bit of contemplation. Frankly, he was surprised that he had actually reached a conclusion. It was definitely something that he didn't think was in him, actually figuring out a way to make it so he made a decision. All he needed to do was hit his head a multitude of times into his desk to make this seem like a good idea. That's probably because it wasn't.

A stampede of footsteps told Diavel that no matter how much he tried, he didn't miss the boss battle, much to his dismay. Sighing a little bit, Diavel picked his trust sword off the ground. No matter how many times he seem to fail it, somehow, it kept him alive, if only barely. He couldn't do that with a guild. Failing the guild was allowing another person to die. Every time a person died he was failing the guild, failing himself. That was something he wouldn't be able to do. His had clenched around the handle of his sword. Was he ready for this boss battle, No. Was he ready to bullshit his way through inspiring everyone else, Yes. That was all he needed at this moment. Make the guild believe that he actually knew what he was doing then maybe he would figure out just what the play was. Or he could hope at least.

XXXX

What did Diavel get

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter(s) will be up in a week

Have a great week

-Kirk


	236. Humid

April 1, 2024

-PoH, Johnny Black, and Lux-

PoH sat quietly in a deep dark cave while the other twenty members of Laughing Coffin sat around him. Their new hideout was nothing near the grandeur that the last one had but he doubted that even the efforts of the entirety of Aincrad could find it. They had positioned their hideout in the back of a dungeon, a dungeon that was virtually useless to any meaningful player as it was in one of the lowest levels.

To make it even more hidden, the only entrance to the system of caves that they had set themselves up in was blocked by a moveable boulder. However, it was only moveable from the inside. In addition only a scant few of their current members could leave the base on a regular basis. These were the four information brokers that they still had and they were only useful if they could get information that he didn't already know. The only way the could effectively do that was if they weren't confide to the same space he was in.

That wasn't to mean that everyone else wasn't allowed to leave but the times that they were a lot less than regular. Him included would only be allowed to leave if the had a job to do, and that wasn't often. The only time that they would take jobs nowadays would be when the money was incredibly good, and it usually wasn't. Instead most players would spend their time clearing out the monsters that spawned within their base.

Of course, he knew that his men were increasingly becoming more and more unstable since they weren't get the food that they needed. And by food he meant that their blades weren't getting soaked anywhere near where they had wanted them to be. He could feel it himself but he knew that it was less than important at the moment to sait his thirst for blood. The grounds were far too dangerous for him to want to and he knew that the moment that they killed someone players from the front lines would be on top of them once again.

Though he had gotten word that the front lines was stopping their assault on Laughing Coffin he knew that there were still a few players that wouldn't. Mainly the two that had started it, Keita and Alanza. Two effectively nobodies that weren't even a part of the front lines but that didn't mean that they weren't dangerous, because they were far more dangerous than the rest of the front lines. Eventually he would need to figure out how to get around the two of them and killed them, but that would come at a later date.

"Sir, I have returned." It was Lux, by far the best information broker that they had ever had. Personally, he didn't know why she was soo good as she had been taught by a subpar one but he didn't care one bit at all. It had been here that exposed the plot against them and made it so that they could escape. Not only did she tell them the date and time at which it was happening but she also told them the route that they would take. If anyone deserved to be here, it was Lux. Truth be told he had been a bit wary about allowing a small little girl like he into the guild but she had proved herself several times over.

"What did you return with?" PoH asked. To be honest, he didn't care one bit about all the other members of Laughing Coffin that gathered information for him. All they were really meant to do was to confirm that what Lux had been told was correct, and about ninety percent of the time it was. And when it wasn't, it was small little tidbits, the parts that really didn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

"Multiple things sir." Lux stated as she opened her menu and sent him the list of everything that she had learnt. "There is talk of an elite force of players that mean to bring us down. I didn't catch all of the members names but among them is Keita and Alanza." The two infamous serial killer killers. They really needed to figure out how to deal with them but for being low leveled, they were surprisingly strong and resourceful. Any attempt at their life had ended in a death of one of their members.

"Who else." Keita and Alanza while sufficiently annoying, weren't threats by themselves. From reports he had of the battle last month he could tell that if either himself or Johnny Black found their way into fighting them they would have no problem. But there was no way he could risk losing one of his stronger killers or himself at the moment. If he still had Zaza, Zack or Gai it would be a different story but he didn't and he had to be more patient and less reckless.

"Some of the most powerful members on the front lines, Asuna and Kirito were the easiest to find out for some reason. I think it was because Asuna couldn't keep her mouth shut. Argo is a part of it too, but for me that was practically a given, I just had to dig a little bit harder to find her. Saffi, Sinon and Silica have all been seen going to meetings without any of their ensemble, while this is not confirmed, I believe them to also be members. Lastly it seems as though both Tsubaki and Ran more on their plates, they have been snooping down in the lower levels also." Lux stated as she opened her menu and scrolled down her list.

"Ten members, and an impressive cast at that too, they will prove to be worth adversaires when we finally leave this hellhole, do you have anything else?" PoH asked as he didn't even bother to look at the list she had sent him. He knew that she would tell it to him anyways, the list was just for him to reference later, without Lux's obvious bias against certain players, mainly Argo as they were in direct competition over all of the information in Aincrad.

"Yes, the front lines have finally tallied up all of their casualties, the lost seventy three players against us, however none of our targets were killed. Also we know the numbers of our members that they had caught inside their man made prison. They had caught nineteen, including Zaza who I was told lost to the elite beater himself." Lux stated as she went down her list once more. PoH took a glance at the list and he saw that not only had she figured out the players how had died but also most of the players names.

"That means we lost thirty eight players that day. I understand why the front lines has called back their assault on us now but we need to figure out how to break them out of that prison." They had known about the prison since before the front lines decided to attack them but held back on trying to figure out how to break in. At the time it felt like a waste of resources but now that he knew that one of their founding members was inside, they needed to get in. "Do you know anything on the prison?"

"Not much but I got the jist of it. There prison is under twenty four hour surveillance, though at night it is full of mid level players. During the day however the front lines send down people to guard it. Most of them don't take this job every seriously as one thing is abundantly clear, there is no way that a red player could break in, only and green player could and not only that but they would need to be trusted also. In order to break them out we need an inside man, who we do not have." Lux stated.

"That seems like a problem." PoH stated as he thought for a moment. They would need to go out a do some recruiting of high level green players, and that would be both risky and nearly impossible. "What else do you have?" He asked after going through his head on how small the possibility of them breaking their players out of prison would be.

Lux smiled and materialized a small cloth bag out of her inventory and handed it to PoH. It was a fine grey powder the consistency was almost perfect. "Refined minerals form and recently found dungeon. They spawn in clumps of crystals in fairly high rates in certain areas, they also blow up when they come in contact with fire." Lux smiled. Somehow he had been amazed by her again, she had found what they had been looking for since the beginning of Laughing Coffin.

XXXX

What's going to happen now

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next one will be out in a few

Have a wonderful day

-Kirk


	237. Horseplay

April 5, 2024

-Sinon and Silica-

"Why are you trying to balance on your head?' Sinon asked as she walked into their room. Well it really wasn't 'their' room and rather it was Sinon's room but Silica somehow managed to spend even more time then Sinon in it, even if she didn't sleep in the room. Sinon had walked into all sorts of craziness that Silica was trying to pull, most of the time using Pina but this time she seemed to take her own athletic abilities. She couldn't tell what was worse, trying to make a dragon balance ten apples or trying to do a headstand on top of a table.

A loud crash ensued as Silica lost her balance and then proceeded to hit a multitude of objects. First she hit the couch, which probably soften her fall a little bit. Though her face was being smashed into the table so she probably didn't feel good at all. Then he entire body fell to the ground, which was followed by a loud groan of pain. "You messed up my balance, you meany." Silica pouted sounding almost exactly like what she had sounded when she was two.

"It's not like you had much anyways." Sinon stated as she walked into her room and plopped herself down on to one of the armchairs. She had to get herself one of these for her room, it was soo much more comfortable than a chair or her bed. Well maybe not her bed but if she laid down in her bed right after getting home from school she would fall asleep. Then she took off both of her shoes utilizing the easy system that was the equipment menu and put her most likely smelly feet where Silica's head had been a couple of minutes ago.

"Pina attack, she was being mean to me." Silica yelled as she jumped to her feet and pointed at Sinon. This proceeded to be probably the best interaction that Sinon had ever seen for Pina. Her little blue dragon, Pina, looked as though it couldn't be less interested in what had happened. She turned to look at Sinon for a couple of seconds before seemingly rolling her eyes then curling up back into a ball and falling back to sleep. "Pina!" Silica yelled alarmed but this did nothing to wake up the tiny dragon. If Sinon had to guess she would say that the dragon was tired of Silica's shenanigans at least for now anyways.

"How was your day." Silica stated defeatedly as she laid herself down onto the couch that Pina was sleeping on. Almost immediately the small dragon moved so it could curl itself in her lap, even if she was trying to lay down on the couch. If it didn't have wings or was an unmistakably blue color then she would have thought it to be a cat. The mannerisms of Pina pointed to it being a cat and almost nothing else.

"Did I ever tell you how much I hate dealing with people." Today had been one of her training sessions with team b. In their guild they had two teams, team a and team b. Usually team b was just the reserve for team a, if anyone died then they would have to fill a spot from team b. This was exactly who theirs functioned but Saffi wanted their training to be just as good even if they were in the worse group. That meant that Sinon would have to train with them for three out of the seven days in a week. Combined with the other three days she did with team a, she was starting to get a little tired.

"What was wrong this time?" Silica asked. Unlike her, Silica was just a member of this guild so she had nothing to do or two days of the week instead of the just one that Sinon had. Two of the days were taken with Saffi's training sessions and the other three were taken by Sinon's. The differences between their training styles was night and day. Sinon focused on everyone functioning as one united whole, making them move as close to one unit as possible. However, she also wanted them to do a whole plethora of commands at the same time. While team a knew that this was instrumental to facing a floor boss, team b did not.

Saffi's training sessions focused on the individual. Making sure everyone was up to par with Sinon's requirements with both their skill and levels. Once she had done so, she focused on making everyone stand out with their skill and power. Even though working as one unit would get them through the battle sometimes there was a problem in the boss battle where a player would have to attempt to manage on their own. That was Saffi's job, to make sure that everyone was ready to be on their own and could hold their own.

"When I split them up into two forces and ask them too merge they just can't do it for the life of them." Sinon stated. Even though she wanted them to move as one unit, most of them time Sinon broke them up into separate sections and expected them to work in unison with players that were nowhere near them. Team A had managed to be able to do this with up to four sections but the fifth one always posed troubles. Not to mention that at times Sinon wanted them to merge. It wasn't a surprise to Silica that team b would have a troubles with merging in perfect time.

"Is that it then." If that was their only problem then they were in good shape. Silica had originally been in team b so she knew how it functioned but she was glad she was in the premier team. While the players in team b were incredible at what they did, team a was on a whole other level, they could do some advanced maneuvers that team b could only dream of. Merging wasn't that big of a problem in the grand scheme of things. A commander could easily circumvent merging two sections into one.

"They're quite good but they lack some of the efficiency that our team has. At times it seems like they trip of commands and just do it a tad to late. When juggling aggro between two sections they would get killed." Sinon stated. For some reason Sinon just managed to focus on the little things that they were doing wrong and made them seem a lot bigger than they were. Sinon needed everything to be perfect and overlooked the fact that apart from levels, they could easily sub in team b for a in almost every situation. If the Storm of Centuries was juggling aggro then the rest of the front lines would be having some serious issues at the time.

"You should have them all come to one of team a's training sessions, show them what they could do if they worked just a little bit harder." Silica knew for a fact that they had a day off when Sinon was training with team a as she used to use it all the time. Silica would go in and watch team a in action and it really paid off. No one would have ever expected the lowest level member when starting out would be such a vital member of team a.

"That's a really good idea." Sinon stated as she put her shoes back on in a flash then stood up as if what Silica had said wasn't just common sense. Did Sinon somehow not think about that and just went to the fact they they had to train harder to get better. No matter how smart Sinon was, she seemed to just skip over the obvious stuff.

"Only a genius could come up with it." Silica stated sarcastically as she had a big smile on her face. Sinon rolled her eyes at the sight of this even though her smiled practically mirrored Silica's. Without so much as another word or sound, Sinon left to presumably talk to their leader, Saffi.

XXXX

It's like they're meant to be friends

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter(s) will be out in a week

Have a wonderful week

-Kirk


	238. Harm

April 9, 2024

-Ran and Lizbeth-

"I want a sword." For simple words came out from the player in front of her and yet, Lizbeth need some more information than just that. If she had one yen for each time someone came into her shop and said something vague like that she would be the richest person in Aincrad. Well maybe after Kayaba, he was probably a millionaire or even a billionaire from this game alone. Not to mention the other countless non virtual reality games he made beforehand.

"Not very helpful." Lizbeth rolled her eyes slightly and turned around to continue the work that she had been doing before the young girl entered her shop. Players like her came around almost daily at this point and even if she turned them away, the profit she made from her regular customers was enough to make whatever they gave her basically meaningless. Her days of being a backroads shop owner are far over, now she was the most sought after blacksmith in the entirety of Aincrad, better than everybody else.

"I want the best sword you can make, one handed." The girl stated as she opened her menu then start to click on a lot of items. Whatever she was pulling out of her inventory she had a lot of. On top of the clear counter separating them appeared more ingots of ore than she had ever seen in her life in one place.

And they weren't just on of a single type, each ingot was different. From what she could tell, there were some of the best materials she had ever used in there. What she had made Kirito's Asuna's and Silica's weapons from were among the stack of materials. That material she had never been able to use again and she had made her best weapons from it. But that wasn't all, along with that ore there was other ores that she frequently made weapons from, very good ores while not all that rare, than of course there were ores that she had never before seen. Either they were extremely rare, boss drops or from newly found dungeons.

"Where did you get all of these?" Lizbeth asked as she ran her hands over them. She could already feel herself making the words in her mind. The ingots of material triggered something in her mind that made her want them more than she had ever wanted them before. Even though she knew that they were inside a game it felt as though they were an aphrodisiac to her. Nothing else had ever made her feel this way.

"These are all the ores obtainable from the latest ten floors plus some extras. This one was a last hit bonus and these two were dropped by a field boss." The girl said as she pointed out some specific ones that Lizbeth had never seen. She could only imagine the weapons that would be created from these ores. Some of them would be able to last the entire game while others would be among the best weapons that anyone could have. Whatever the little girl's price would, she would pay it if she got to use these materials.

"My name is Ran and I want to make me the best sword you could possibly make." The player name Ran said as she put her hands on the table. Lizbeth had heard of that name before, she was one of the most important players on the front lines. Ran was in charge of strategy against bosses and had complete trust of almost the entire front lines. Everyone respected her for what she was able to do or was jealous of her abilities.

"Hello Ran, I'm Lizbeth." She said as she held out her hand for a handshake. Ran took this rather easily and Lizbeth was able to feel the legendary Ran. It was completely different from what she had expected. Lizbeth had been expecting something like Asuna who had one of the strongest handshakes she had ever felt. In stark contrast it was like she was shaking hands with a five year old. There was absolutely no grip strength or at least the grip strength left there. But, Lizbeth decide not to ask what that was about. "What is your price." Lizbeth asked once their handshake was over.

"You make the best sword possible and you get the ores that you don't use for your pleasure." Ran stated as she pushed the pile of ingots towards Lizbeth. This would have worked if the ingots weren't heavy, instead they barely moved a centimeter before she gave and did a hand motion at them. The little girl in front of her was nothing like the Ran she had heard from tales. If she hadn't just shown Lizbeth about a million col in ingots then she wouldn't have believed that she was that player.

"You got it, when do you want your sword by?" Lizbeth said as she started to look at the materials. She immediately gravitated towards the three she had never seen before. The strongest sword that she could make would be out of those she just didn't know one just yet. Once she had time she would like into the strengths and weaknesses and plan accordingly. However the other ores were still able to make incredibly good swords, just not ones that would last the entire game. Lizbeth wanted to make a sword that would be able to accompany Ran throughout the rest of SAO.

"As soon as possible if that is alright with you." Ran stated as she closed her menu and looked at Lizbeth with a simple could you do it or not. Ran was a very simple person and she knew that there was really only one real answer that Lizbeth could give in this instance. Any other answer would result in her losing all of these precious ores.

"I can get it to you tomorrow, is that alright." Technically she could get it to her today but she wanted to make sure she wasn't giving her a half assed sword. LIzbeth wanted to overlook the attributes of the ores to see if they could be combined to make a stronger alloy or not. Even to look and see what type of handle would work with ores well If she was going to make the best sword she could possible make than she couldn't have an extremely good blade on top of a lackluster handle.

"Alright, see you then." Ran turned and attempted to leave but about three paces away from the door she collapsed on the ground holding her stomach. Dropping what she was doing, Lizbeth ran over to help her client. Ran's face was in obvious agony but from what exactly. There was nothing in the shop the could hurt her, especially since they were in a safe zone. Whatever had made collapse to the ground was from the real world. Not only that but hurt a lot more in the real world than it did in this game. If was able to break through her being unconscious then something truly dangerous was happening on the other side.

After a couple of minutes her her constricting on the ground, holding her stomach and eyes tightly closed, she stopped. For a couple of moments she laid there and Lizbeth thought she had either day or had been knocked out but she then broke herself away from Lizbeth's arms and stood up. She wasn't steady on her feet and needed to hold one of the counters for support for a couple of seconds while standing up. "Are you alight?" Lizbeth asked.

"Never better." Ran stated with an incredibly fake smile before she turned and left without saying another word, leaving Lizbeth with in utter confusion at what had just happened. One question circled in her mind, what had happened in the real world to get a reaction like that out of her?

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What just happened

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter will be up in a few

Have a wonderful day

-Kirk


	239. Hellenic

April 15, 2024

-Tsubaki-

"Lo, apart from Olympus, the Sun never looked aught so grand." Tsubaki smiled as she looked at the temple that was in front of her. She was completely hidden under the cover of the Temple of Artemis. The day before Ran had taken her to see it but the one visit wasn't enough so she wanted to see it again and drink it in.

At the moment, Ran was off with the front lines helping them scout out the next floor boss and while she had been invited, Tsubaki had decide to decline it. Every other scouting mission she had been on but not this one, she was tired of the front lines. What was it for anymore? Tsubaki knew that for everyone else it was to get out of the game and go back to their usual lives but what was her life before this game.

Before the game she didn't even know what it had been like to see anything. She was one hundred percent blind and there was absolutely nothing the doctors could do about it, apart from giving her someone else's eyes which had an one hundred percent chance of failure, there was nothing they could do. From the basic explanation that she had gotten from her mother she was missing an incredibly important part of her eye. Technically her eye was seeing everything except it couldn't send it to her brain, it was missing the nerves. This had taken the doctors a couple of years to figure out exactly why she couldn't see anything.

However that wasn't the only problem that they had with her. She had been born a month earlier than she was supposed to be and had nerves missing or not function all over her body. Basically she couldn't tell her body what to do in certain place or she couldn't feel it at all, most of the time a combination of the both. For instance she couldn't feel her left hand but that wasn't the big problem. The nerves that could tell her right leg what do weren't functioning, nor could she feel it. In essence she could use or feel her right leg but everything technically worked. This was a huge problem as she was the first person to ever have a problem like this and the doctors wanted her constantly around to check up on her and see if it had spread throughout or just stuck to where it was.

From what the doctors had told her, of which she doubted that they told her everything, that it was not spreading throughout her body but was most likely due to her not growing in place before her birth. However, the doctors did actually help out in some cases. She knew that many of the problems she had at birth were no longer there. Quite of few of the nerves that had been missing they had fixed, according to them, they had fixed all of the nerves that weren't obstructed by organs and that they had found. Her left hand they could find were exactly the disconnect was and her legs was in the middle of some major arteries in her leg. Not to mention also the femur which was limiting their space to work.

Tsubaki ran her left hand over her arm. This world felt so real and she didn't know what to think of it. The real world, the world that they were all fighting to get back to felt more fake to her than this world did. And no one seemed to have the same opinion as her. Everyone wanted to leave this world and yet, she didn't think it was that bad. Yes it had been responsible for some many people dying and probably the result of someone with a massive god-complex but what was soo bad about that. In this world there was no doctors keeping her tied to a hospital, it just seemed to be a lot better.

The columns of the temple loamed down on her as she looked up at the Temple of Artemis. It had been destroyed, not once but twice by humans and once by nature. Each time it had tried to come back it had been destroyed and now there was nothing left of it. This was probably the most real representation that anyone could see of it and the only one that she could see. How could a world with a world wonder be so bad that everyone wants to leave?

After she stood up, Tsubaki walked inside the temple of one of the greek goddesses. Artemis, the Greek Goddess of the Hunt as Ran had said. Anything that she knew about this temple had been passed down to her from her friends mind. This was a temple built for the virgin goddess and it had been rebuilt for her time and time again. It was supposed to represent something great and what happened to it. It had been pillaged by people. At least in the game it was in a safe zone it couldn't be destroyed.

Inside, Tsubaki sat in front of the statue of the God and just looked at it for a couple of moment's. She was one of the few goddesses that never had heard breasts shown on her statues. A perfect role model for girls, that could do anything that they wanted, even if it was completely different from what everyone else was doing. Out of seemingly nowhere, a sword materialized in Tsubaki's hands and she looked down at it.

The real world suck, and yet why was she fighting to get everyone out? Charlotte dematerialized and went back up her hand as she collapsed onto the ground. What could she do about it? Eventually they were going to get out anyways, they had soo many great players that it was it was impossible for them not to finish the game. Hell, a couple of the players could probably take on the rest of the bosses a clear the game if they wanted to do, but that just seemed all around a little too risky.

Tsubaki ran both of her hands through her pink hair. She remembered when she first got into the game and saw the first things she had ever seen and she went into making a character. The game started off showing herself and for the first time she had seen what she was like. She taller than she had expected and her legs were different than they had thought they had been. All she had changed was that she had turned her brown hair pink.

After she had spent, what she had deemed to be an exemplary amount of time inside the temple, Tsubaki walked out into the moonlight. How fitting that the temple of the God of the Moon shone so brightly a night time. It didn't even feel like it was night time with how brightly it shone. The temple was something else, Tsubaki didn't know how to explain it, for any of the wonders of the world. They just felt to Tsubaki like they were other worldly, as if they didn't belong anywhere near where they were. These monuments back to the real world made the world of SAO feel as though it was something more than just a game, as if it was a whole other planet in it of itself.

Looking up towards the moon it looked larger than normal, the moonlight was a like another sun piercing across the sky, but unlike the sun piercing across a blue sky that was clear, this moon was struggling to to get it's light through the few clouds that moved across the sky. It was as if the was the sun after all of its powers were stripped and only a visage of it remained. Tsubaki clenched her fists as she turned around and looked at the amazing surroundings. At this point she had seen soo many of these scenes and yet they still amazed her. No matter how much she saw them, there was no getting used to them. There was no way that she would ever allow this to end, not if she had a say in it.

XXXX

How did you like this chapter

Well I hope you enjoyed it

Next chapters will be up in a week

Have a great week

-Kirk


	240. Double

April 19, 2024

-Diavel, Ran and Tsubaki-

"Go!" Ran shouted as she looked at the two players. They were standing a couple of paces from each other and getting ready to duel. Tsubaki on one side hadn't even taken out her weapon yet, rather she stood in a boxer stance waiting to launch a powerful counterattack in response to his first attack. Diavel, on the other hand, held both his shield and sword close to his body, prepared for a surprise attack but also to take control. Ran knew that if he wanted he could attack almost as fast as Tsubaki could.

For some reason, Diavel was back with them to train. Ran didn't exactly know why he was doing this with them as their were players far more qualified than two sword users but she couldn't just turn him down. She would help out anyone in need for as long as they needed, and even if she personally thought that they didn't need the help. That included one of the strongest members on the front lines, Diavel second in command of the Knights of the Blood Oath.

Right after she said go, Tsubaki didn't move one bit so Diavel seemed to take this as he should attack. Standing around and waiting would get them to nothing sure, but this action showed a lack of patience. Maybe they would have to work with that to make it better. Slowly and paced, Diavel started to walk towards Tsubaki. This was a good idea, being a tank he wasn't the fastest so a surprise attack was out of the question. If he choose to walk instead of run at her, he would preserve his strength and energy for a time that he would actually need it and in knowing Tsubaki there was no doubt that Diavel would need it.

Once he was within a distance that Tsubaki could attack him in a mere second, Diavel brought up his pace and started his attack. Holding his shield diagonal in front of him blocked his left side but left his right arm with more movement than it would have otherwise. Using this, Diavel threw a diagonal slash downwards at knew that this was just to get everything started, even if this attack hit it would be nothing more than a scratch.

In an instant, a purple sword appeared in Tsubaki's hands and she swung her sword upwards at his. Ran could tell from the look on Tsubaki's face that he was using a bit more power than she had calculated. This was no matter however, Tsubaki simply bit more power into her blade and threw his blade off of hers and back. Then she took this time to swing her blade over her head and go into and even stronger attack. Since Diavel's sword was in no position to attack in an instant, Tsubaki was able to put motion in her sword before she attacked Diavel's shield.

However, Diavel did something unexpected, at least for Tsubaki. Ran could have seen this coming as it was a very good idea in this situation. So instead of building up an attack, she would have gone and attack him with short jabs. Diavel took his shield and pushed it forward, hitting Tsubaki's right side and making her stumble back a bit. Her balance had been completely thrown off but Tsubaki instead of panic or falling to the ground, she acted in an efficient manner.

The moment both of her feet were on the ground, Tsubaki jumped off the ground and did a backflip in mid air and land a couple of paces away from where she had jumped from. However, Diavel was right on top of her. Diavel, instead of taking his time to launch another attack, he went straight into attacking her. This was most likely the smartest thing to do with a player such as Tsubaki. Players like her thrive when they are in control of the situation and the longer Diavel could stay in control the better chance he had at beating her.

With his sword leading the assault, Diavel took off running at Tsubaki with a quite some speed. In this game the most important thing was to be fast, if you were fast you could control everything. Right as Tsubaki hit the ground, Diavel threw yet another slash at her but this time it was horizontal coming from the right. Tsubaki had a mere second to comprehend what was happening and adjust and she did just that.

Using her sword, Tsubaki blocked his sword yet again and threw it off of her own. Then she proceeded to attack his shield once again but as it seemed with a different plan. Instead of the longer, stronger whined up attack, she instead went for a couple of short jabs. None of them so much as went past Diavel's shield and once again, Diavel attack with his shield, pushing it forward. However, this time Tsubaki was prepared. Her sword turned into a shield of her own and she launched herself into his.

As it turned out, this wasn't the best plan as she kind of just bounced off of his and hit the ground. Her weight was nothing compared to Diavel so she just kind of failed with her attack miserably. With her back on the ground, Tsubaki need to think of something quick and fast. If not then Diavel would win, and she couldn't allow that to happen. If he won then how would she ever be able to beat Ran. Her friend was a billion times stronger than this fool and she was having trouble against him. It seemed as though every time she went up against him he got stronger and stronger. She needed to find a way to beat him.

Diavel, using his sword, slashed downwards at where Tsubaki's head should have been but she moved just in time to avoid it. Then she changed her shield into an axe and went one her plan. Her axe turned green and she propelled herself off the ground and into the air. Axes in this game deal more damage to the weapon or armour durability, so if she held out long enough then she would break his shield. Combined with a green ability on which ups the damage she did to durability, it should be long until his shield broke.

Once she was in the air, she went down hard at where Diavel was standing. Instead of moving he simply put his shield above his head. This attack would either break his shield or at least chip it. With the gravity bonus and how much strength she had put into this attack it would be enough to take out a significant amount of the shield's durability. But instead as she hit the shield, her axe simply bounced off of it and didn't do the slightest bit of damage.

Tsubaki hit the shield and bounced off of it and fell onto the ground one more time. However before she hit the ground, she turned her axe into a spear. The axe did nothing to help her plan and that plan didn't seem like it would work anyway, not with whatever that shield was made out of. Now she had a different plan, one that was a lot better. As she hit the ground, she spun the spear and it nicked his leg. Almost immediately, Tsubaki saw him grimace at bit and she knew that she could carry out her plan.

Once again, she pushed herself off the ground then launched into a flurry of attacks. There was no way even with a shield that he would be able to block all of them and it seemed as though Diavel knew this. With it known, Diavel used his shield to get her off of him but Tsubaki had calculated that he would do that and had a plan of what do in reaction. She dipped down low and took another cheap shot at his legs which was successful, then she dodged his shield which wasn't to hard but she had to move quite a bit. The she launched everything she had until her fell to the ground. Both of his legs had been attacked and with the overwhelming amount of attacks coming from her, he fell quite easily.

"Nice job." Diavel stated as it was announced that he lost the duel. "I look forward to challenging you next time." he said as he held out his hand. Begrudgingly, Tsubaki took his hand and shook it. She would win next time also.

XXXX

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Sorry for the lateness, I forgot

Next chapter will be up in a few

Have a wonderful week

-Kirk


	241. Drudging

April 23, 2024

-Kirito and Asuna-

"Could this be more boring?" Asuna asked as she walked lazily around. They were inside of a low level dungeon, one of the few that was never mapped out. Kirito remembered this one like the back of his hand, it was the floor twelve tunnel dungeon. Many high level players at the time had lost theirs lives inside of it and even now most players seemed to avoid just because of that. However, since laughing coffin could be hiding inside, they had to search to see if they were or not.

"You could be doing this by yourself." Kirito stated as he knelt to the ground and ran his fingers over it. They had been inside the dungeon for about four hours now and had a great deal of it mapped out already. Mapping it was Asuna's job while Kirito directed her around the dungeon but the dungeon wasn't as still as it seemed. Either they were walking in circles or someone else had been inside of it recently.

"Fair enough." Asuna smiled as she looked back at Kirito. In turn, Kirito returned a smile that used most of the muscles on his face. While this was nowhere near as exhilarating as a dungeon in the higher levels would this one had it's benefits. For one thing there wasn't a bunch of monsters that came in hordes to try to kill them. In fact, the dungeon was pretty baren in that aspect as they had seen a grand total of four monster's in the entire thing. However, Kirito knew that the monsters in this dungeon were actually intelligent ones. If they knew they couldn't win they would group into large numbers then ambush.

"Have we been here before?" Kirito asked he touched the floor and ran his hands of the dirt and stone the covered the floor. While there was no footprints, the floor was way to lose for there not to be anyone nearby at least. If nobody had walked through here then the dirt would've pretty much molded onto the rocks but it did not. Instead, they were just on uneven piles all of the places. It made the ground quite difficult to walk on.

"I don't think so." Asuna stated as she turned around and look at Kirito, who at the moment was kneeling and had his hands feeling the ground. Then Kirito noticed yet another thing, certain parts of the ground were also wet. This was not a humid dungeon, quite the opposite in fact. Ever since he had gotten inside, Kirito would do anything for a bottle of water, it was quite dry. His hands felt soo much better expanded on top of the stone then they had in his pockets. And yet, the ground was wet. "Do you think someone else has been here?" Asuna asked as she kneeled to the ground and felt it.

"The ground here is wet but it isn't wet anywhere else." Kirito stated as he ran his hands over it. Asuna looked at him for a moment before reaching out her hand and feeling the ground. A look a recognition lit up in her hazel eyes. So it wasn't just a figment of his imagination acting up, there was actually a bit of the ground the ground the was more moist than any other part. And if it was what Kirito thought it was, then there was someone else inside of this dungeon.

"How did you even notice this?" Asuna ran her had over it one more time but she was thinking of what it could possibly mean. At the moment, Kirito could only think of one solution and that was that Laughing Coffin had set themselves up inside of this dungeon. It would have been a great spot if Kirito had not known about it. However, since he did this hiding spot was basically forfeited at this point. Once they found where the rest of Laughing Coffin was in this base then they would be destroyed.

"The ground was more uneven then I remember it being so I bent down to check it out." Kirito stated as he stood back up and looked around. Other than them, there was absolutely no sign of life, not even the slightest glow of shimmer off an eyeball. If they did not have a torch with them then it would have been completely engulfed in darkness. However, the torch usually attracted monsters, so why wasn't there any inside this dungeon, had Laughing Coffin cleared them out. This dungeon was infested with monsters last time Kirito was here, even so much as had a field boss inside of it. Somehow it was down right dangerous but know they had so much as even tried to harm them.

"What monsters lived inside of this dungeon?" Asuna asked. All of the monsters that they had ran across at this point Kirito had killed before she had even seen it or he had acknowledged its existence. Now the dungeon was so laughably easy that the lizards could be one shot while back when he had been here the first time they had given him a great deal of trouble. The times had changed drastically since then.

"Lizards of all sorts and sizes." Kirito stated as he turned around and looked at Asuna. He could tell that the wheels in her head at the moment were turning faster than they had done during the entirety of this visit. Kirito knew that she was trying to find a reason that the ground would be wet without having to be connected with Laughing Coffin but at the moment Kirito's mind was set. There was no other feasible reason other than Laughing Coffin had set up base in a place where soo many players had lost their lives.

"The lizards half to have a lair somewhere where all of their eggs are at." Asuna stated as she finally reached what she deemed to be a conclusion. "If Laughing Coffin has set up base anywhere, then it would be there. And if they did then the number of Lizards would be at minum since they had lost their main breeding place. Also, that place would most likely had a water source of some kind, hence the damp ground. However, there is not a single place on this map at the moment that could be discerned as a breeding place. Wherever they set up base, it's all the way in the back." Asuna stated as she stood up and looked Kirito in the eye.

"So then they're here, we have to find where they are." Kirito stated as he started walking further into the dungeon. If they found them now, then no one else would die from their crusade. There was nothing more than that at the moment for Kirito. All the mattered was killing Laughing Coffin, destroying them soo hard that they couldn't stand back up, for all the deaths they had cause and the people that they had killed.

"Kirito, wait." Asuna ran up to him grabbed his arm. "We need to wait before we go further. It's almost night time and I don't think we can take on twenty players on our own. We need to get reinforcements if they are indeed here. Come on, we'll come back when we have have people with us. It'll be safer then, I don't want you to die, got it?" Asuna stated once she had turned him around and made him look at her. Her face was sincere and he knew that if he did what he had almost done then she would be furious with him. That did not seem worth it, at least at the moment.

"Alright." Kirito said as he relaxed and looked at Asuna. Her face was relieved and smiling, this face looked great on her. She was happy that he didn't go on and try and take on Laughing Coffin at the moment, that would be a pretty dumb decision, or very dumb. "Should we go get something to eat then?" Kirito asked.

"I would love that." Asuna smiled.

XXXX

Aren't the two of them great

Next chapters will be out in a week

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Hope you all have an amazing week

-Kirk


	242. Dungeon

April 28, 2024

-PoH and Johnny Black-

"So this is their famous prison." PoH stated as he looked at it through a scope lens that he had designed. Johnny Black had looked through it a couple of times, and it worked like a charm, it was quite frankly astounding at how well it worked. Their blacksmith had built it along with a bunch of other random things, including some night vision goggles. Granted those didn't work that well but they technically did their job.

"I wonder why they put it on floor one?" Johnny stated as he looked at to make sure that no one had spotted them in broad daylight. During the day down on floor on, it was probably one of the safest place. No amenies on this floor would attack unprovoked and that meant that all of the level one players could do whatever they wanted. In night time, however, there were a few monsters that would strike but they were pitifully weak. Anyone that had died on floor during the first month was obviously an extreme noob.

"With how many players there are on this floor, a full scale attack or even trying to sneak in would be basically impossible without being spotted. However, that's during the day time, I think we have a chance during the night time." PoH stated as he looked around the both of them also. That was a good point as there was no way that highly wanted players could so much as get near the prison without being spotted. The amount of civilian players and all of the guards for it would make it almost impossible to get in without taking on way too many players. If they had Zaza then they could probably get through but they did not have a player like him.

"What all do we know about this prison." PoH stated as he took his eyes off the prison and relaxed into the bushes that they were hiding in. Johnny did the same but looked around to make sure that no one had seen them. Over the last couple of weeks, PoH had spent a lot of time with their blacksmith and most of the duties he had done, had been relegated down to him, and that included meeting up with all of their information brokers.

"It was built from the ground up by the front lines and is on the border of this town. It was designed this way to make it so that the red players inside don't attract the citie's guards. However that means it can be technically broken, given that we could get through steel." Johnny Black stated as he looked at the back side of the prison. It was made completely out of metal. Getting through something like that would a least take months if they didn't have the right materials. The only thing that Johnny could think of was to blow it up and then of course there was the question, with what.

"Steel isn't impossible to get through, if we break the outer wall, what else is there?" PoH stated as he too looked at the steel wall. From what they knew it was at least a couple of inches thick and no weapon was going to get through it any time soon. However, Johnny had heard rumors of some gunpowder that they had found from one of the high level dungeons. If that was true then they could get through it pretty easily.

"I can assume that there is some actual wall, most likely made of stone behind it but that should go down after the steel rather easily. They are all in cells that we would either need to break the bars of or get the keys to. That would require us to actually attack the guards of the prison." Johnny stated as he pulled up his break down of the defense on the prison. What Lux had given him happen to be quite in depth, as though she had actually found the people who designed it and bought the blueprints off of them.

"What is the prison's defense guard like?" Poh asked. Getting through multiple layers of metal would probably prove to be quite the challenge as they probably only had a finite amount of gunpowder. Getting through multiple layers of metals bars and walls was probably a little too costly for them at the moment. Once they actually got to farming it they could probably have enough to do so however.

"The strongest player we have seen around here is Diavel. On his days off he comes down here and helps guard with anyone that is there. There is not set time or day of when he comes down however. In addition to him there is Kazuma who does one of the overnight shifts each week. Apart from them it seems like b-list knights and people from the storm of centuries come down. They are not the strongest but enough of them would give us trouble. There is usually around five during the day day then around seven at night, but some of them fall asleep on the job." Johnny stated as he scrolled down the list. There were a couple of other names on their but no one that he recognized, so he doubted that PoH would recognize them either.

"So the opportune time to attack would be at night when Kazuma isn't here then." PoH stated as he looked back at the prison and saw that Diavel was walking up to it. It must have been on of his days off and he had came down to chat with whoever was at the prison. Johnny couldn't imagine this to be the most interesting job so probably a visit from one of the strongest players in the game would help boost their spirits a little bit.

"Not necessarily, on a couple of occasions, there has been players enter the prison to talk to the prisoners. Mainly this has been Kazuma and presumably his brother but if we could get someone inside with a key then they we could get all of them out before the guards even noticed anything. Of course that would mean that we find a green player that is pretty well known and that could actually get inside without questioning." Johnny stated as he finally closed his menu. That was the last thing that Lux had said on the long message that she had sent to him and from what he could see, if enacted it would be a near foolproof plan.

"So we would have to recruit a member of the front lines then." PoH stated as he put his hand on his chin thinking. That was certainly a risky a plan to start off but the reward was much greater than any other plan that they had. If they didn't use gunpowder here to blow up the wall then they could save it for some other time and event to use. Maybe when they attacked the front lines head. An explosion would certainly screw up any order that they would have.

"That is the intended plan, yes." Johnny Black stated. Lux had told him to tell it to PoH and not tell him it was her idea as it was a extremely dangerous one and she didn't want to take the blame for it. Johnny albeit begrudgingly, did as she had asked and told his leader a plan that had a chance of killing them all.

"Alright, tell Lux to scout out the front lines and find the one that would be easiest to convert, but don't tell any of our other brokers, this is her mission and hers alone. Meanwhile, trying to figure out everyone that we would be saving inside there." PoH stated as he slowly sneakily left their hiding place. Now they knew what they were going to try to do and they were ready to attempt to break out Zaza and all of their other members. All they had to do now was wait on Lux to succeed.

XXXX

Welp, I forgot again but hey I haven't gone to sleep yet so it's still sunday

Hope you enjoyed this chapter

Next chapter will be out in a few

Have a wonderful day

-Kirk


	243. Dome

May 1, 2024

-Sinon and Silica-

"Silica, get Pina off my head, now." Sinon stated obviously a bit aggravated. She usually wasn't this aggravated by Pina's and Silica's intrusion into her personal space but today was a different scenario. First of all, Pina had been on her head for the better part of an hour despite all of her efforts to get her off. Secondly, Pina wasn't just laying down, no she was jump, doing flips and stomping on her head, it was enough to give her a migraine. Lastly, they were inside a dungeon, this was something they would do in the safety of her room not in a bloody dungeon.

"Nope." Silica sang this as she pranced around the small and narrow tunnel that they were in. Her prancing basically she was slowly skipping instead of walking like any normal human being. They were in the tunnel dungeon of floor twelve and they needed to search for Laughing Coffin here. Supposedly, Laughing Coffin was here according to Kirito and Asuna. This was something that Sinon doubted as they had found them way to fast.

Sinon let out a sigh but continued on. Eventually, Pina would get tired of fooling around on her head and leave it. The problem for Sinon was that she would probably go to sleep before that even got to happening. For some reason this blue dragon had way too much patience, especially for something that had Silica as a master. One thing that she had learned about Silica was that she really didn't have that much patience, prefering to always be doing something. Pina, on the other hand, could stay in the same place for hours on end, no matter how inconvenient.

"So Kirito and Asuna said that Laughing Coffin was in here?" Silica asked as she turned around and started to walk backwards. From what she could remember, they had quite a few arguments in assistance to Laughing Coffin being here. One was that there was next to monsters, which they had found but the other ones were kind of weird, strange, and not every detectable. Kirito said that the ground was moist and it was even, whatever that was supposed to mean.

"Yeah but I don't that there is anything actually here, they're probably just a little overzealous and looked a bit too much into it." Sinon stated as she peered around yet another corner. The tunnel was completely empty. She remembered back when people were dying in this dungeon left and right but now it was even safer than floor one. The only way you could die is if you hit yourself with a rock.

"Wait, there's something up here." Silica stated as she held out her hand for Sinon to stop. She did and she waited for Silica to tell what was in front of them but she never did. "Pina, make sure there is no one or monsters ahead. Pina took off hard from her head, but she couldn't really complain as she had finally been freed of the little dragon. Sinon ran her fingers through her hair in an effort to smooth out her now ruffled hair, but that left varying results. A minute later Pina came back with nothing, or that's at least what Silica had translated it to.

They both walked forward into a huge room, the ceiling was high enough to contain a huge monster and it was large to be considered a boss room. It hit her in an instant, this was the field boss of floor twelve, the one that no one ever bothered to try and find much less actually fight. Sinon remembered hearing that they weren't going to deal with it thanks to it being nearly impossible to efficiently shove fifty players through this maze of tunnels. Nevertheless, it wasn't here anymore which means someone must have killed it other than them. Sinon wondered for a brief moment what it was until she looked at the surrounding walls.

Scattered everywhere, was a bunch of broken eggs in all sizes. For one that she could easily palm in her hand to one that she could even hide in, this was most definitely a breeding ground but it didn't seem as though it had been used for that in a while. Most of the eggs were completely shattered and all that remained of them was the eggs shells that had been flattened on the ground.

"Woah, what is this place?" Silica inquired as she walked in and picked up some of the eggs and felt them with her hands. Sinon did the same as they felt as if they were way too soft. Whatever had been in this egg had either hatched way too early or had been killed before it hatched. This was graveyard of eggs all over the place. However, there was not a single monster in it to protect the eggs, it seemed as though whatever had been here had died off whenever the eggs had been destroyed.

"This is a field boss room and probably a breeding ground for these eggs, or at least it was. If this place isn't working and there isn't another one than there probably isn't any monsters in this place because their way of spawning had all been but destroyed. There's no one in her to kill them, there just isn't way for them to respawn so the remaining members of this species slowly died off." Sinon stated as placed the eggs down.

"That's sad." Silica said as she petted pina on the head, who was now resting on her shoulder. "So the monsters in this dungeon only have a finite number of them and they're slowly dying off and the rest that are still alive are probably hiding." Silica stated as she placed Pina on her head and walked to Sinon. "There's only a finite number of them like us, there's no way for us to respawn so we are slowly dying off, aren't we." Silica stated as she looked up at Sinon. For a little girl she did seem to get a little too dark sometimes.

"Come on, there's no sense in sticking around her waiting for something to come and find us." Sinon stated as she pushed Silica on the back to get her to start walking. Soon enough she did and they started to navigate the tunnels once again. Now the tunnels seemed even darker than before, even with the light for them torch that she had. This place could hardly constitute as a dungeon anymore.

"So we have to tell Kirito and asuna what we found out then." Sinon stated as she looked at Silica and Pina. The small dragon was mirroring all of the signs of sadness from Silica. For some reason this brought a tiny smile to her face. The two of them were so innocent together but with each other exhibiting sadness it was hard not to smile at it. In her life she couldn't imagine anything other than these two at her side. She didn't know what she would do with her light ray of sunshine.

"I bet they're not going to happy about it." Silica stated as she looked up at Sinon with a sort of sad yet at peace look. She had obviously found a way to shove her feelings in the back of her mind for the moment. When they got back to their rooms and it was late at night she would get the full gravity of what was going on in her mind but she had dealt with Silica a lot of times beforehand, as she had done for her.

"Yeah, but we have to tell them that they were wrong, we're going to have to refocus our efforts somewhere else." Sinon stated as she put her hand on Silica's back. "Let's do that tomorrow however, there's a great noodle place on floor sixty eight and I've been dying to try it out, word on the street is it is even better than some of the best restaurants in the real world." Sinon stated as she pulled Silica along. She could tell that she wasn't exactly on board with Sinon's happiness but that she was on board with noodles. Who wouldn't be on board with noodles?

XXXX  
AH, back to the dungeon again

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter

Next(s) should be out on sunday next week

Have a wonderful week till then

-Kirk


	244. Data

May 7, 2024

-Lux-

Lux was effectively bored out of her mind. Unlike the usually jobs and missions she had been sent out on this one felt like she was doomed to fail, or anyone who had gotten it. How in the hell was she going to find a popular front lines member that would betray the front lines and break out players that had killed their own comrades. It would be easier to raise one from the ground up in the front lines to find someone who was already super strong.

She was at one of the boss information meetings, all of the players on the front lines were being told what to expect in the next boss battle. It was open to the general public but the front lines would decide which one of them would go along with them. There was absolutely no chance that she would go but she would at least see the lineup of players she had to choose from. Suffice it to say, her options weren't all that great the vast majority of these players would rather die the most painful death than even think about switching sides.

At the moment, Diavel, the leader of the Knights of the Blood oath was telling them what to expect in the upcoming boss battle, the floor sixty seven boss. Word on the street at the moment was that this boss in particular was one of the strongest that they had ever faced, rivalling the floor fifty and twenty five boss, it was nothing to scoff at. He was currently warning all the players of the impending doom and she couldn't be more bored with herself. There was no world where Diavel would soo much as turn his back on the front lines, even if the gave him a billion yen.

Instead of focusing in on his words of caution, Lux focused on the other members of the front lines standing up there with him. The Lightning Flash Asuna looked as though she was trying her hardest to seem as though she wanted to be there, however Lux could tell that she wasn't soo much as paying attention. Asuna was looking directly out into the crowd with a sort of soft look. Following her gaze she found Kirito which should have been expected. The star crossed lovers couldn't go five seconds without seeing each other.

In direct contrast to his unprofessional subordinate, Heathcliff was standing as she straight and resolutely as possible. Even with his sword drawn and shield on his back he looked as though he was an giant, formidable in every single way. Lux could see the reason why he had gotten the unique skill Holy Sword. The only other person that she could think of that was Diavel and he was a far cry away from Heathcliff.

Sitting on the ground beside him was Saffi and from what she had heard, she was one of the most laid back members of the front lines but also one of the strongest. She also prefered to do absolutely nothing even with the guild that she had spent an enormous amount of time forming. Saffi was definitely the odd one out but she wasn't one of the ones that she could convert to their side. First, of all she had no reason to and secondly, she has an enormous amount of devotion to one of her subordinates, Sinon.

Lux had heard a decent amount of stuff about Sinon all she could say was that Sinon was a bit of an odd one. Nothing about her screamed leadership potential in fact, everything kind of screamed the opposite. She is conservative and quite preferring other people to do things and for her to follow up behind but she was a stellar leader of their guild. In no other place has she found such a capable leader. In every battle that she had sent them in, she had not lost a single member. Each of the players that followed her were behind her one hundred percent of the way not even hesitating for a moment to second guess her for even a second. They moved as one unit even when they were broken apart doing their own things and at the center was Sinon.

However, Sinon was quite the character. Sinon was often described as level headed and opened minded. She was far more dynamic than most players and seemingly unpredictable but Lux saw something other than what everyone else was saying. Instead, Lux saw that she was predictable in everything that she did because what she did was the smartest thing, even if it was unusual. Also she thought she wasn't all that level headed but would seem that way as long as the situation didn't push her past her breaking point.

Nonetheless, she wasn't in the running for the next Laughing Coffin member. The last two that were up there was Ran and Tsubaki, the two young girls that seemingly had everything figured out, even if it was something that they had just seen. Arguably two of the strongest players in the game, they were the brains of every single operation that the front lines would ever partake in. However, at the moment they seemed to be not all there, much like Asuna was, they were both obviously thinking about something else. Lux found this to be extra odd, it was their plan being revealed to the front lines and they didn't so much as care to listen.

Every couple of seconds, Ran looked to her side at Tsubaki who was not noticing or ignoring her and Lux was leaning more on the latter. For the two best friends this seemed to be unusual and this may spark into something bigger. Lux doubted that they would be able to recruit either one of them but if one of them died then the other one would be weakened and the front lines would be without it's brains and thus be less efficient.

Then as fast as the meeting had began, it had had ended and Lux had not payed a attention to it a single bit. The only words that she had so much as caught was, this meeting is now adjourned. That wasn't exactly the most helpful set of words to get an idea of what had happened during the meeting but Lux didn't care as she had a new prospect on the horizon. The two best friends and had now broken out into speech and were practically yelling at each other.

Hastily, Lux pulled opened her menu and started to jot some of the things down that they were saying. Most of it, she could tell was just petty things bursting out of the seems as their friendship had probably started long before the game but a few of them were extremely interesting to Lux as they dealt with present time. Among the most interesting of which was the fact that Tsubaki wasn't going to the next boss raid because of apparently nothing other than the fact that she didn't want to. Also apparently, she has a pet in much of the same way that small girl from Storm of Centuries has one.

Lux looked up at the date and released that the boss raid was in two days and on that day she would have to find Tsubaki. She was an incredibly strong player and if they were to take her on, trickery would be the best way to do so and she would need to play the long game with her. In the meantime she would have to report back that converting a front line member into a Laughing Coffin elite was even more impossible than they had said. Suffice it to say, but Lux was not looking forward to telling PoH that she had came back with next to nothing.

XXXX

Well I forgot again and life suck

Here's a chapter

Next will be out in a few

Have a day

-Kirk


	245. Drag

May 9, 2024

-Lux and Tsubaki-

"Who are you?" Tsubaki turned around to look at her. On her face was an incredibly smirk as she slowly walked towards Tsubaki. Lux wasn't anywhere near the front liner before she had noticed her presence or heard her footsteps, truly one of the strongest players in the game. Deciding to wait until she got to be mere feet away from Tsubaki to respond, she looked around at the place where she had found Tsubaki. From the information that she gathered about this place, it was a replica of the Temple of Artemis, or at least it tried to be.

"I was about to ask you the same question." Lux stated as she stopped next to tsubaki and turned to face the younger player. There was at least a two year difference between them or it was the fact that she looked extremely young for her age. Her friend, Ran look even older than her and Lux knew for a fact that Tsubaki was in fact the older of the two. It was probably due to the cotton pink hair that Tsubaki had on her head as opposed to Ran's bland brown hair and most of the other people's black or brown hair. Personally, Lux had black hair on top of her head.

"Go, I want to be alone." Tsubaki was even more assertive than she had seen her two days ago, this girl had a fiery personality, she liked it. It gave the younger player a much needed edge against her. Lux personal found it entertaining, she didn't even have a weapon on her and yet she felt comfortable enough to basically enuate threat against. Though, it wasn't like Lux was any different, the only visible weapon she had was the knife on her waist. She had opted to putting her sword away as to seem more friendly.

"I can be here if I want, you don't own this place." Lux stated as she walked up to the temple and plopped herself down onto the staircase, arms crossed and looking intently at Tsubaki. What she was doing at the moment felt a little young and immature for her to be doing in her opinion, but it felt so good to be doing to an obviously aggravated Tsubaki. If the player want to she could easily kill her in a second and that's what made it even better Lux.

Seemingly out of nowhere, Tsubaki pulled a short purple one handed long sword and pointed it at Lux, so she did have a weapon. That didn't make Lux feel all that great now, she would have to handle this situation most carefully. "Move or I'll move you." Tsubaki pointed the sword at Lux. She meant business and wasn't going to sugarcoat it one bit. Maybe she was the worst possible player that Lux could have thought about tailing. Slowly, Lux stood up and walked off of the staircase with her hands raised high.

"Woah, don't you think that is just a little harsh." Lux laughed with a sort of unease that came almost entirely from the fact that she had a sword pointed at her, there was no other way that she would be laughing this , Lux came up with a plan, obviously her plan to wing it did not have anywhere near the desired effect as all she had gotten in return was a death threat with a sword that appeared seemingly out of nowhere, she was just glad it didn't appear in her throat. Tsubaki didn't seem that she wanted to kill her, not yet at least, she would use that feeling to her advantage at the moment.

"This is the Temple of Artemis, right?" Lux asked asked as she finally put her hands down but made sure there was a good distance between her and the beater. If there was one thing that the game had taught her at the moment, it was not to trust a beater, especially on with a sword. Although, everyone's definition for a beater was basically just a strong solo player, which was totally contradictory to what it actually started off as meaningly.

"Yes." Tsubaki stated. Short and curt, Lux could work with that, it was a lot better than shoving a sword down her thought. Or the leagues of information traders that she had to bargain with for hours just to go down one hundred col,they were down right terrible. She didn't outright tell her to shove off and that was good enough for what she had in mind, all she needed was to be close enough that Tsubaki could still hear her. Then Tsubaki's purple long sword vanished in an instant and Lux let out a sigh of relief.

"A temple to commemorate the legendary Goddess of the Hunt, I bet most players thought Artemis was male." Lux stated as she looked up at the temple. Whoever had enough time to jack off and program this into the game really needed to get to the not having the perma death in the game. Maybe this game may have been somewhat successful if it didn't have it, where else could you see a recreation of one of the seven wonders of the Ancient World.

Tsubaki let a small chuckle. That was good, that meant that she didn't absolutely hate the living daylights out of her, at the moment she tolerated her. This was going to be a lot longer of a process than Lux had originally thought, who knew that teenage girls would be soo much trouble, even herself as she was one didn't know that. But it was better than going back up to the front lines to find absolutely nothing and get scolded at by PoH for being a literally failure. Of course she told him shove off but eventually she'll have to come face to face with her superior once again.

"I wonder if this temple looks any different in the moonlight as Artemis was also Goddess of the Moon." Lux inquired, she didn't know how much time Tsubaki had spent there but she knew from the information that she had gotten on the place that it did in fact look different a night time. All she needed to do was make Tsubaki see that and then they could build a relationship from there, it would be easier than trying to build a relationship with a sword halfway down her throat.

"It does actually, it was a full moon yesterday, and today actually. During it the pillars gleam and sparkle in the moonlight and the inside lights up with the moonlight, trust me, it makes this temple even more breathtaking than it already is." Tsubaki stated as she did a total one eighty and seemed as though she was no more than a child on christmas rather than a salty kid who got no presents because he was absolutely terrible. This made Lux smile, she had no idea that breaking past tsubaki's barriers would be this easy, maybe she could even get her to tell her somethings about the front lines, be a more direct person to get information from, she had been needing that for a while.

"I'll take your word for it, but I really must be off, my name is Lux, it was nice to meet you." Lux stated as she turned and started to walk away. If she was correct than Tsubaki would would stop her and ask her to stay with her and see the temple under the light of the moon. Then she would be able to get on her friends list and things could spiral out of control from there. Maybe this had been worth it after all.

"Wait!" Tsubaki grabbed her arm. "It is only two hours before the moon comes back up, trust me this temple under the moonlight is a sight you have to see, it is to die for." Tsubaki stated in one breath and extremely fast, it was incredible how fast she could talk when she was excited. Tsubaki sighed showing that she had resigned to staying. "Awesome, I'm Tsubaki by the way, pleasure to be your acquaintance." She held out her hand for Lux to shake. Lux smirked before shaking her hand, this had worked perfectly.

XXXX

Another wonder yippy

This was another chapter

Next ones will probably be up on sunday

Have a day or try at least

-Kirk


	246. Dexterity

May 15, 2024

-Kirito and Diavel-

"Why did you ask for me?" Kirito asked as he opened the door and walked into a sizable room. It had been quite unusual for him to get a message from Diavel, a player that apart from the events of floor one, he hadn't interacted with much or really any at all. Diavel was one of the leaders of the Knights of the Blood Oath and he was at the top of the game in the guild side of things while Kirito was in the opposite position. Kirito, on other hand, was on of the strongest solo players in the game, with the only real competition coming from ran and Tsubaki, who worked together.

"Is it soo unusual for me to call for a fellow beta tester?" Diavel said as he stood up from his chair and closed his menu. Neither his huge shield nor his long sword was anywhere to be seen. If Kirito had to guess he was deep in the thick of planning the next floor boss battle as that was coming up in just a few days. They were on floor sixty-eight at the moment and Diavel thought that if they kept up the current speed they could get out in this year rather than the next.

"Incredibly, we haven't so much as talked since those days anyways." Kirito stated as he walked over to Diavel and stood a couple of paces away from him. He could sense some kind of conflict boiling inside of Diavel but he had no clue what. If he had been better friends with his fellow beta tester than he may have asked him what was up, but that was a futile point. The only time they had ever really talked in the beta was on the floor six boss, he and Kirito were some of the few players to actually get that high. Although, Kirito knew that floor six was the last floor Diavel conquered while he went on to finish of two more.

"We haven't and even though we haven't if have something to ask you Kirito, feel free to say no." Well, he was already setting himself up for failure Kirito could see that much. "I want to request a dual from you, Kirito and I want you to use anything and everything at your disposal to defeat me. Whatever happens in this room, stays in this room, is that too much to ask?" Diavel asked as both his both his giant shield and his sword appeared as if he had summoned them. He brandish both rather easily and waited for Kirito to make an answer.

"Not at all, don't be too sad when you lose." Kirito stated as he unsheathed the sword Asuna had gotten for him. It a served him well for nearly six months and it showed no signs of diminishing its usefulness. The sword would definitely be a weapon that he used for the rest of the game and possibly against the final boss of the game. Kirito opened his menu and sent Diavel a dual to half health. A first strike dual while much safer would not be anywhere near the playing field for them to test their abilities. If the game wasn't a death game then they would have undoubtedly went for the death but half health would have to do.

"That's what I was going to say to you." Diavel laughed as he ready his sword and shield. His stance was unlike any stance he had seen him use a against a boss to date. Most people in the game would say that the purpose of a shield was to defend themselves from incoming attacks. The other few would be using shields for miscellaneous activities such as sledding. However, Diavel's stance did nothing to reflect this. Instead of covering his body in front of him he had his arm pulled up and off to the side as if he was ready to punch someone. Guarding his front was his long sword just barely cut through Kirito's line of sight on Diavel's face. This did not stop him from seeing the smile of anticipation on his opponent's face.

The buzzer went off signaling that the timer to countdown their duel had finally ended and going to go all out. Before Kirito even had a chance to move, Diavel had already covered the ground before them and was swinging his sword in hard at Kirito. Without much time to react, Kirito rolled off to the side. Then he proceeded to throw a low sweep at Diavel's leg but that was blocked by Diavel's shield.

Another strike came down at Kirito, and this time instead of sticking around, Kirito jumped backward. He needed time to access the situation before he could do anything too risky. As it felt right now, anything that he would do near Diavel would most likely result in a sword through his body, which was not pleasant in the slightest. Jumping back, Kirito realized that he wasn't going to get Diavel off him in any easy fashion, if he wanted to then he would have to try real hard. The moment he accessed the situation he saw that Diavel was running straight towards him with his sword straight in front of him.

Not wanting to be impaled, Kirito dodged out of the way only to be hit by Diavel's shield, which knocked him backward and towards the ground. Instead of falling on the ground, which was what the momentum of his body was telling him to do, Kirito spun in a three-sixty motion with his sword outstretched. His sword cut across Diavel's chest but the wound was too shallow to do any substantial amount of damage. However, the moment his body came to a halt he was hit by Diavel shield and was thrown a couple of paces and land in a pile on the ground.

"Kirito, you won't beat me with just any old sword tricks, use your real power and use all of the skills at your disposal. Anything that happens in this duel stays in this room." Diavel stated as his sword turned blood red. Unlike most sword skills, it had turned without even a motion of the lips, it was definitely something unique. Kirito waited on the ground for a couple of moment's before finally making his decision, he would have to use it eventually.

Diavel ran at Kirito and trusted his bright red sword down on where Kirito was standing, he knew that there was no way a single sword could stop his. Kirito held his sword up to block the strike and out of nowhere in his left hand, the sword he had used to beat Heathcliff appeared and together, the swords stopped Diavel's with a deafening bang. Then Kirito threw the swords of his and pushed Diavel back with his foot. After both of his swords were brandish, Kirito fell into an iconic and memorable sword stance.

"I knew it." Diavel stated as both his sword and shield disappeared. Kirito was left dumbfounded for a moment while Diavel forfeited the duel. "You're the owner of the unique skill Dual Wielding, aren't you?" Diavel asked as he opened up his menu and started to sort through it. How did he know about the unique and how did he know there was one called Dual Wielding. "A while back I got this list of unique skills off of Argo and I've been trying to find the players with them, you're the first one I have found. The rest will get their skills once we reach floor ninety. However, two of the skills were unlocked at floor fifty." Diavel stated. Kirito could only see one path to follow at the moment.

"Yeah," Kirito said as he opened his menu and showed Diavel the unique skill that he had gotten, it was already maxed out. He had been training it up since the day he had gotten it, the first night he had seen it, he spent nearly four hours playing around with it.

"As predicted," Diavel stated as he smiled at the sight of it. "Well allow me to introduce myself, I'm Diavel, the other player to get a unique skill," Diavel stated as he showed Kirito his menu. Sure enough, under skills the was a unique skill called: Holy Sword.


	247. Dub

May 20, 2024

-Kirito, Argo, and Diavel-

"What an unusual combination," Argo stated as she looked at the two players in front of her. The leader of the front lines and second in command of the Knights of the Blood Oath sitting right next to Kirito, a beta tester solo player that had managed to combine those words into a single one. Not to mention the fact that he had befriended Asuna and it looked as though Asuna was pulling farther and farther from the guild as she got closer to him. If she was Diavel, she would have recruited Kirito into the guild in a heartbeat.

"Shut up Argo," Kirito said as he plopped down in the seat across from her without so much as asking whether or not it was alright, of course, it was like Kirito to just go ahead a do things. At least with her, they had known each for far too long for something as nominal as that to get on her nerves. However, that didn't stop her from being somewhat insulted by him and raising an act to symbolize that she was. Kirito easily dismissed this as he just rolled his eyes then found something a little bit more interesting to stare at. Diavel, on the other hand, instead bowed in a silent apology before taking the seat next to Kirito.

"Sorry for my comrade, he isn't exactly the nicest person in the morning," Diavel stated as he opened his menu. This caused Argo to smirk ever so slightly. From all the time that she had known Kirito, he wasn't exactly the nicest person at any time, except for the brief period of time where they had just gotten to know each other. By now he had given up on the act of being a nice teenager in exchange for a much more lax act, it sort of suited him at times.

"Apologies accepted, what are the two of you here for?" Argo asked as she put both of her hands on the table, her fingers entwined with each other as she looked at the two players. She had known both of them for a decent amount of time, as they had both been a part of the beta testing with her. Granted, Diavel was more of a person that she had known by name rather than anything else. However, since the game had started her dealings with Diavel and his guild had been too numerous to count. All that she knew now, was that for some uncanny reason, they trusted her. That was something many people did not give to her.

On the table materialized a large stash of gold. This had come from Diavel as Kirito had so much as lifted a finger since he got to the table. However, he did turn his head to look at the bag for a couple of seconds. "We want to ensure total secrecy on this subject," Diavel stated as he pushes a large amount of gold to her. This was far more gold than Kirito had ever given her for one thing, even for the loan that he had taken out back in the early days of the game. Whatever they wanted to talk about, it sure was important.

"Did you dip into the guilds bank account?" Argo asked joking as she took the sack of the table and swallowed it into her inventory. While her time as an information broker had left her to be one of the richest players in the game, this amount would ensure that she was. They could have gotten what they had wanted probably for a fourth of what they had just given her, but she wasn't going to tell them that. "You have my word," Argo stated as she bowed her head at Diavel.

"Good, now with that out of the way, we have something to show you, right Kirito?" Diavel said as he looked over to Kirito, who nodded in acknowledgment. Both of them at the same time and with a wave of their hand, sent their respective menus over to Argo to be seen by her. Both of them were open to the skills page and were at the top in a section that she had only ever heard about, unique skills. On Kirito's side, he had the skill of Dual Wielding while Diavel had the much more intriguing skill of Holy Sword. Each one of the skills was maxed out, and from what Argo could tell, it had taken them a while to do so.

"When did you get them?" Argo asked as she opened her menu and started to flip through page after page of her notes and information. It had been a long time since someone had been interested in unique skills, the last one had been Sinon and just before she had been Diavel. Unique skills were not something every player knew about but the ones who did were in search of getting them or finding the people who had them. However, at this point in the game, the two players in front of her should be the only unique skill users.

"Both after the floor fifty bosses," Diavel stated as he closed his menu and Kirito followed suit. That made sense to Argo as she knew that two of the unique skills would be given out after the floor fifty boss, however, she didn't know which ones had been given out, and her list of potential people was quite expansive. "We both proceeded to max the skills out in private, we are the only ones that know we have the abilities, now you do too." Diavel said as he leaned forward in his chair a brought his voice done ever so slightly. Argo made a sigh of relief, the less people that knew that they had them the better, she knew that players weren't exactly that happy whenever another one got some super ultra powerful unique ability.

"What do you want?" Argo asked as she finally found the page of the unique abilities that she had gotten some time ago. Next to one of the skills was the name Tito, the player who had given her the list and the first unique ability user, the illegal one in fact. Argo put in that both Kirito and Diavel had gotten one too and the respective ones that they had. That left seven more to be given out on floor ninety.

"We have a couple of requests but most of all we want to know of anyone that asks you about unique skills," Diavel stated as he looked directly at Argo, this stare was not exactly wanted that much. Argo nodded in agreement, that was an easy task to handle, there would be barely anyone that even knew about them yet alone would ask her about them. "Secondly, we want to know everything that you know about them." To this Argo sighed, she figured that she would have to tell them everything but that was still quite a long task. Without so much as confirmation as to whether or not she agreed with this proposal Diavel continued, "Lastly, I want you to keep an eye on Heathcliff, he claims to have a unique skill also." Diavel stated as her eyes light up in remembrance. She had already dismissed that he didn't have one but it was obviously worth another look.

"Well I think I already have someone you should meet," Argo stated as she sent them all of the pages of notes and information that she had on unique skills. For the fact that is was a rarely discussed topic and not widespread, she did have quite a number of pages just on it. In fact, she had known what most of the unique skills already do, the requirements for getting them. Unfortunately, she wasn't going to get one. "I'll set up a date for us to met up with her," Argo stated as she shifted around in her menu, it had been a while since she had talked to her.

"Who?" Kirito spoke up for the first time since he curtly told her to shut up.

"Sinon," Argo stated as she found Sinon's name on her friend list and started to compose a message.


End file.
